


Do Not Think, Remember

by Requiemesque



Category: World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Angst, Childhood Memories, Drama, Dreams and Nightmares, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Memory, Of course it's dramatic, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Psychology, Religion, Romance, Suggestive Themes, Tags Contain Spoilers, Tags May Change, Trauma, What Did You Expect, alternative universe, team bae
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-02
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-03 18:53:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 28,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24500359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Requiemesque/pseuds/Requiemesque
Summary: “These dreams you’re talking about, when did they start?” The therapist finally spoke, albeit slowly, Sasha was willing to see past the irritating and nasal drawl to stay still.“Couple of weeks ago, just a few days after my parents’ funeral,” Sasha said coolly - like they have been cold facts being pulled out of an emptier soul. “It would always end with a blank face. A girl with auburn hair but I wasn’t that sure if it was because that is her hair or if it was because of the sun.”She had not known dread, not in her parents’ funeral, and not in the accumulating break-ups and bad dates that have all told her that it’s her fault. So she wasn’t exactly sure why it lingered beneath the comfortable sheets and the unused spaces of her queen-sized bed.
Relationships: Sasha Banks/Becky Lynch | Rebecca Knox
Comments: 29
Kudos: 41





	1. Not About Angels

* * *

**Chapter I: Not About Angels**

_I'm wondering if without our memories, there's nothing for it but for our love to fade and die._

* * *

It was peaceful behind the dull windows of the office, the tapping sound of a plastic pen hitting against a wooden desk creating an echo in place of the clinically empty air. Sasha sank into the leather couch, her spine was relaxed but her feet fidgeted to the rhythm of unease. 

“These dreams you’re talking about, when did they start?” The therapist finally spoke, albeit slowly, Sasha was willing to see past the irritating and nasal drawl to stay still. 

“Couple of weeks ago, just a few days after my parents’ funeral,” Sasha said coolly - like they have been cold facts being pulled out of an emptier soul. 

“Well how do you feel about that?”

“About what?” The response came quickly. 

“Your parents dying.” 

She shrugged, “It happens, I guess. Old people pass of old age all the time. They haven’t been the best, they haven’t been the worst.” People said that people gradually grow into warmth as they age. Sasha wanted to scoff, perhaps, from the awareness that she had been one of the rarer cases. 

“Okay…” The drone of an old air-condition rammed against the thinly-veiled fascination that wrapped itself underneath the therapist’s tone. 

“So,” Sasha continued, stealing a quick glance towards her watch. They just had a couple of minutes left until unreasonable, three-digit pricing of the higher range would be charged against her. New York was a highly stressful environment. “I’m not really sure if it’s a dream or a nightmare - in a conventional sense, it feels beyond that. It would always just feel real.”

Real as the beginning of a picturesque, vacation dream. It always started out as the nervous shifting of gears and the slow acceleration of whirling metal. A mother dressed in mourning and the blank face of a patriarch. And then unearthed before her eyes was a long, wide road of scattered leaves and empty benches and unswept gravel. Vibrant trees lined up by each side of the road, their branches extended to distantly hold each other, like a loveless marriage between root and skies. In the dance between scattered sunlight and shapely shadows, she would always see her own reflection from the window appear and disappear before her eyes.

“It would always end with a blank face,” Sasha closed her eyes, trying to futilely remember a blur that existed at the back of her head.

“Your dad’s?”

“No. A girl with auburn hair but I wasn’t that sure if it was because that _is_ her hair or if it was because of the sun. I really don’t know who she is.” She could shudder. “She was left behind. Doc., I know a lot of people would be scared of this type of dream. But I wasn’t. It felt like… it happened.”

She had not known dread, not in her parents’ funeral, and not in the accumulating break-ups and bad dates that have all told her that it’s her fault. So she wasn’t exactly sure why it lingered beneath the comfortable sheets and the unused spaces of her queen-sized bed. 

“Hence… the request.” The therapist blinked, the realization settled in the flutter of her lashes. “Ms. Banks, we’re not sure if this _is_ a memory. There are a million of possibilities of what else it could be. Hypnotherapy has been largely discouraged, studies have shown the recovery of false memories rather than legitimate ones.”

“I’m aware.” Sasha nodded curtly.

“-And even if it was real, there’s a reason why our brains chose not to remember some of these events.”

“It’s just been a bother really.”

“How come?”

“Managing my heart rate, for the most part.” She deadpanned, the empty feeling did not exist in broad daylight. Maybe.

* * *

Nightmares do not thrive in cold places, like in the stale leather seats and in the knot of telephone cords on the desks of Wall Street’s beating heart. All there was in the office was capital, the god that everybody prayed to when they didn't need the real one. Nightmares only ever belonged to the other side of the phone. They only exist in places where people still dreamed about life beyond wealth.

The day was occupied by skeptical clients and persistent bosses who were teetering on the edge of white-collar crime. As she brushed past one call after the other, Sasha’s gaze fixated on the trajectory of corporate stocks for the month, guessing that if you stared at something for too long it would stop making sense. The bull market started to look like thick lines traversing across black planes. They looked like alpines of Europe, sharp and beautiful, cool air blowing through steep surfaces.

“Banks.”

She could watch herself from afar, her lips formed to utter empty promises. This was not what she went to school for but the money was good.

“Sasha,” a co-worker cleared his throat, hovering around the newly-vacated cubicle beside Sasha’s. Personalized mugs and neglected rubber bands lingered in it like frames in an empty home - inhabited by memories rather than people. It read: Bayley, but no one would have known that as the man simplistically sat on the desk and covered the bulk of the cubicle’s identity. He cleared his throat, a bit louder this time. Scratchier, gravelly. “Banks.”

It had sounded like nails on a chalkboard, but it definitely did the job. Sasha glanced at the man with a neat bun and an uneven shave. He was probably Michael, or Cassidy, or John. She wasn’t sure. They all start to look and sound the same for the first time that she met them and after two years have gone by. “Yes?”

He stood in anticipation, hands in his pocket, and his right brow raised high.

“...Yes? Can I help you?”

“Rollins?” He said, as a matter-of-factly. “Seth?”

She stared at him blankly, realization finding its way in the crook of her brow. Somehow she had forgotten that Wall Street was occupied by one of the million kinds of men who think that they’re one in a million.

“Ah yeah!” She forced a smile. “I remember you, you’re from…”

“Seniors… I’m one of the seniors,” He continued for her, still holding an eerily proud smile as he drawled on about equities, loyalty, and other sorts of economic noise. He spoke about all the things that she had already learned in college. It was all useless. 

This was routine to the point that Sasha had already mastered the art of a perfect, affirmative, response. Stay still and nod, which she did until the guy abruptly changed the topic.

“ _Sucks_ for her,” He lamented. “Bayley, was that?”

Sasha swallowed the lump forming from her throat that came straight out of her chest. She was never that close to the woman from the other cubicle, or anyone, for that matter. But her pulse got so loud that she could hear it pump blood against her ear.

“What do you think happened?”

 _You damn well know,_ she thought, still attempting to tame the wild thumping caged within her chest. _All of you do._ Sasha covertly took two deep breaths and focused on the ticking of the big digital clock above their office. 

“Do you want to, maybe grab a bite or something? Lunch? Dinner?” He stopped and winked, “or _Dinner?_ ”

There are a lot of things she should be thankful for and the obnoxious ring of an expensive phone would be one of those.

* * *

Sasha was exactly forty-seven minutes late when she arrived at the restaurant. It was one of those special, Michelin-starred restaurants that took months worth of queueing to get a table in. 

In front of her date was a cleaned-out plate of pasta and crumbs of garlic bread. “I was about to get the bill,” Finn jested in what looked like a desperate attempt to cover a mixture of doubt and disappointment in his voice. “I wasn’t sure you were going to come.”

“I’m sorry, it was just…” Sasha sat down, raising her hand in a motion to stop Finn before he could assist her. “Work, for the most part.”

He glanced at his phone and shot her a sad smile. She immediately caught the hurt dull the glint in his eyes. 

_You wanted me to text_ , she understood. 

And ever the gentleman he was, he asked, “Do you want to talk about it?”

She stared at him, long enough to cause worry to crease the young man’s forehead. Sasha was waiting. For a feeling, perhaps: guilt, sadness, or whatever it is that will drive the conversation forward. It was their _fifth_ date and he was the _seventh_ man for the last few months. All the boxes had checked out. 

Proper. Good family. Decent income. Sweet. Patient. Kind. Loving. Gentle. Respectful. Did not vote for buffoons. He was everything great. Supposedly. 

But the feeling didn’t come and Finn looked at her like she was the angel that she’s never seen in front of a mirror. For whenever wide eyes would light up the minute that she walked in she would come to realize that he was falling for a person that she wasn’t and didn’t know.

“Finn,” she slowed and took a deep breath to settle the argument that has been happening between her mind and her conscience. “I think that we sh-”

“You don’t want to see me again,” he smiled - like realization had dawned on him since their second date. “I kind of had a feeling.”

She should feel bad when he left but she didn’t. Instead, her eyes flickered between the _expensive_ beverage section of the menu and the thirty-two sent messages that have sat cold without a reply. 

_It’s not my fault_ , were the words that she tried to swallow. But it sure needed the liquid courage for it to slide down her throat and untie the knots that had been forming at the pit of her stomach.

* * *

_Classy drunk_ was the recommended state-of-inebriation for most women approaching the age of power. Where there existed a _strong suggestion_ that they stay home, watch a soap opera, open an expensive bottle of Shiraz, and pretend that they weren't alcoholics whenever they'd come out of their comfortably empty apartments. That might have explained the fact that the top five best selling drinks at the bar were all either based from Whiskey or was something-on-the-rocks. 

It was a rather expensive bar, comfortable leather couches with an uncomfortable price, a tavernesque counter with the gentlest of bartenders, and dim lights and a soft orchestra playing in the background. 

Sasha swirled her glass before she took a small sip of the aged wine, the aroma infiltrating her senses as full-bodied liquid slid down her throat like a sigh after a long day. 

“You from Wall Street?” A voice rang like molten gold running orderly across the edges of its owner's face. It was the bartender, with the hair that’s the color of muted fire. The image burned vivid from the glass from which Sasha was drinking. 

She might have been new. Bartenders from this bar never struck conversations so casually. 

“It’s the suit,” she explained, without a hint of nervousness crossing her goofy smirk. “So… that dude out there, far right. Told me to give you this Manhattan, but you don’t seem like a Bourbon kinda’ girl so I’m going to let you pick an equivalent drink.” 

At the corner of the bar, a middle-aged man with a clean haircut and tailored fit gray suit nodded at Sasha. 

“Keep this between us but _I_ personally wouldn’t. Bad track record, if you know what I mean,” the bartender winked. “So, miss…? What’s your order?”

“You’ve got more of this?”

A burst of cackle left the bartender’s mouth, but really, it was the moment of delight in her eyes that sold it. The glass of wine was thrice the price of a Manhattan. “You know what? Just cause’ you’re funny, the rest of it is on the house.” 

Sasha chuckled, because maybe, for a split-second, the soulless corners of New York City got a little bit more interesting. “Are you new here?”

“Heck, not a regular! God I hope not. Just really did it because I felt like it, I was in the city anyway. My friend owns this place.” The bartender poured a wine towards Sasha’s now-empty glass. “I’m Becky by the way.”

“Sasha.” 

“Sasha…” Becky pondered, her eyes suddenly fixated towards a clean wooden pillar, as if her consciousness left the venue for a good second. It happened quick, almost as if she consciously pulled herself out of a haze and snapped back towards the present. It happened _so_ quick but Sasha definitely caught it.

“Ha,” Becky let out a dry chuckle. “I knew a Sasha once and I have a question for you.” 

“And that is?” 

“Are you going to break my heart too?”

Sasha laughed. 

Whoever that bartender was, she was funny.

* * *

Real. As the beginning of a picturesque, vacation dream. It once again started out as the nervous shifting of gears and the slow acceleration of whirling metal. Her mother’s face fell pleading, the look of silence and the look of cries - forever staring at and past her father. Vibrant trees lined up by each side of the road, their branches extended to distantly hold each other, like a loveless marriage between root and skies. 

She was able to look back, the sunlight rising from the open glade. The girl was gone, but she might’ve never been there. Her own reflection appeared and reappeared by the corner of her eyes, shadowed by the endless trees that grew darker and darker as the car sped past road signs and empty benches.

A dull echo rose from somewhere inside her.

 _Promise that you won’t leave_.

It only happened once and she tried, to futilely dig at the source from picture to picture, but she couldn’t get out of the car.

She couldn’t remember what it was. But what it was formed merely into a hollow feeling that seemed to have carved itself within her chest.


	2. Smoke Signals

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope this one flies, it's a little different.

* * *

**Chapter II: Smoke Signals**

_“The danger isn't the river's speed, friend, but its slowness.”_

* * *

_“How safe, would you say, is this bet?”_ Beneath all attempts to sound collected, Sasha heard the worried undertone behind the voice on the other side of the phone. It was understandable. Money was money, but it had many faces to different kinds of people. For some it was a collection, to others, emancipation, maybe hopes, and definitely dreams. She knew that. 

“Ms. Flair,” she appeased, in whatever tone that sounded like it. “Our firm is top-notch. Behind you is an army of analysts, lawyers, auditors with the exceptional due diligence to recommend what is and isn’t good for you. You have to trust me when I say that there’s a reason we’ve stayed on top.”

 _“Sasha.”_ The tone shifted, the low undertone was audible and vivid. _“We’ve worked with each other for a while now. Woman to woman, you have to tell me if Goldman Sachs is screwing me in this bet.”_

“Ms. Flair, we have crunched the numbers and the bull market is-”

_“No, no, no. Sweetie, when you say ‘trust me’. I want you to know that I’m holding ‘you’ accountable for that.This is a lot of goddamn money, and a lot of goddamn lives. Do you understand? There’s so few of us out here, and we have to look out for each other.”_

Maybe Charlotte referred to the dent in the proverbial glass ceiling, but if she knew any better, Wall Street had enough money to replace the entire building for whenever a crack would creep by the seams of its majesty.

“You have my word.” 

" _Well then, tell McMahon that I’m in.”_

It was lonely at the top, it was probably why Charlotte imagined herself to have friends. Not even the warm smiles of charity beneficiaries could warm the cold air that exclusively blew on the skyscrapers of New York City.

“Oh hey, look at that!” A familiar voice hollered from behind her, breaking the greyscale air of a morning in the cold, old city. She just noticed the coarse texture of the moderately pitched sputter, anyone could have it, just not everyone could do it with _that_ kind of ardent glow. “Sasha!”

The view of a vacant seat soon dashed into a face full of the remnants of a rude awakening, a crumpled jacket and squinting eyes.

“Eyy… so, would you mind if I sat here?” Becky’s confidence hedged as her fingers found themselves clasped, it almost seemed as if they vibrated to the tune of anxiousness. Or it could just have been the unforgiving billow of the winter wind. “I won’t bother you or anything. The tables are just full or something.”

“No it’s okay, just hold on for a second.” She gestured for Becky to park her words and the other woman’s mouth shut as quickly as it had opened, mimicking the collective silence of a corporate Monday. The girl looked so out of place, a saturated glint amidst monochromatic suits.

 _“Banks, my favorite doll!”_ Sasha flinched. An enthusiastic growl erupted from the other side of the phone.

“The deal with Flair is a go.” 

A loud and uncomfortable cackle extended past a few seconds. It sounded like death choking on its own glory; old, grizzly, with expiration looming over its neck. “ _Who would have thought? Who would have fucking thought!? My little- desk jockey... Actually forget I said that. Sasha fucking Banks you just made m- us, a hell lot of money and you deserve a seat at my table. Great fucking job tuts.”_

The laughter continued, reverberating a painful noise that shot sharp towards her ear. 

“Goodbye Vince,” out of Sasha’s gritted teeth came out a softened tone. Unconscious air slowly expelled itself out of her lungs as the call ended abruptly.

“Boss?” 

“Yup.”

“You don’t look pleased at all.” Becky relaxed into the couch, momentarily crumpling the paper that she’s been scribbling on. “Lemme’ guess, some bitch is about to get bankrupt huh?”

Sasha chuckled, almost forgetting the kind of reputation Wall Street has in the eyes of outsiders. “You know, win-win situations do exist right?”

The other woman shook her head and licked her lips. “You see? I don’t believe that.” Sasha wasn’t sure if the grin that grew on her face was playful or challenging. 

“You don't?”

“Oh totally, fuck no. I think that any kind of money, resources, whatever shit we’re going to call it for the next few years? All finite. So if somebody’s taking? Somebody’s fuckin’ losing, that’s for sure.“

Delight curled in the corners of Sasha’s lips. She hasn’t heard that argument since college. “Looks like the bartender needs a drink.” 

Becky pouted, an acquiescent realization dawned on her face. “You’re right, _damn_ you’re right…” She rubbed the back of her head, unkempt locks making itself known as it fell loosely on top of her shoulders. If she wasn’t attractive, it wouldn’t have been endearing, Sasha _distantly_ reflected. 

“...But man, drinks? As a keen observer of the human condition, I’ve _found -_ and believe me when I tell you this; that alcohol only brings out what’s already in there,” she pointed at Sasha’s heart. “And coffee tempers whatever’s angry within _here.”_ She then pointed at her own lips.

“Thoughtful,” she replied, slowly, her gaze trailing towards Becky’s pale knuckles and fidgeting thumb - it fumbled awkwardly with the sharp edges of a crumpled paper. Chatter naturally did not extend within Sasha's office, but Becky looked like she was expecting more. 

“Look, I don’t want to keep you." Becky kept adjusting in her seat, it seemed like she never found a comfortable spot before she stood up. “But I wanna’ thank you so tell me your order and it’s coming right up this table.”

“I’m good, I have my coffee right here.” 

Becky looked over from where she was standing, and Sasha followed her gaze, realizing that the drink had long been cold and abandoned.

"Looks acidic to me. That a macchiato?"

" _Skinny_ , macchiato." Sasha corrected. 

Becky shook her head whereas the smile never left her face. "You know what Sasha? Your coffee's on me this morning. Trust me when I tell ya' I'm about to revolutionize your mornings."

* * *

Sasha gagged on the first sip. _Of course_ , there was whiskey. “Irish coffee!? You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“ _Oh_ ,” Becky paled. “Shit, wait. Now, that’s _my_ coffee. Would you mind if we switched, haven’t drunk from your coffee anyway.”

With her lips pursing towards the curve of amusement, Sasha let out a childlike chuckle. It slipped unconsciously out of her mouth, and her eyebrow involuntarily twitched upon that realization. It has been a while. 

Becky slipped the coffee cup towards her, and a nutty aroma immediately hit Sasha like the warmth of a Sunday morning. When her palate interacted with the moderately-tangy fluid, it hit every bit of ratio correctly, promptly flushing tension out of her bones. 

Sasha closed her eyes to relish the feeling of the first sip. She expected to see a comfortable black whereas the only thing that worked were her other senses, but she saw meadows. A rising sun. Contrasting fingers that intertwined, and legs skipping around roads that seemed to go on for forever. 

_Don’t forget. Promise me that._

Her eyes snapped open. The image was brief but the feeling wasn’t. Her chest felt like it could sink. 

“How was it?” Becky’s voice reeled her back into the coffee shop.

“Good,” Sasha trailed off, mustering up a poker-faced smile that ended up looking sad anyway. “Good… It was good.” 

“This is the only place I could find in here that imports those beans.”

At the point in time she couldn’t hear much of what Becky had said, or has been saying. Her heart carried residual and erratic beats in response to her vision. Becky might have mentioned home, or grandmother, but she wasn’t sure how they were shaped into a complete thought. It also seemed as if the moment had passed and Becky, too, was silent. 

“So,” Sasha searched her immediate memory. It almost felt _rude_ to just abandon the conversation. Becky was kind enough, interesting enough. A wave that danced to a different current. There were enough of the same kind of person in the city that she was a welcome change. “What was that paper that you just crumpled?”

“That - would be my job.” 

“Didn’t look like a cocktail recipe to me.”

Becky uncrumpled the paper by the side of her thigh. 

She recited, "Whatever happened to love? It's now a game of checkers. Where the winner is the one that leaves without a broken heart."

Every bit of word left her lips like they had their respective weight, her tone didn’t betray much but Becky wore her skin in all its translucent shade - sincerity unraveling out of the pauses that lingered between her words. 

Sasha observed Becky in the aftermath that was silence, and somehow the mantra replayed with a wave of different familiarity.

“Carmella.” It dawned on Sasha. “You write for Carmella’s songs?”

“Bingo.” Becky's tongue clicked, as if she fully expected Sasha to figure out such a vague and random fact from just a couple of erratically-phrased lines. “And Elias’ band - that one’s _unfortunate_ , and well sometimes, for more people but it’s never as consistent.”

“You seem fun,” Becky sank on her couch, looking more and more comfortable by the second. “So _why_ are you at Wall Street?”

“Stocks are fun.”

“Jesus, you just made it sound like _fun_ was just the first three letters to _funeral._ ”

Sasha raised a playful brow, amusement rippling from her eyes to the sunny glint that bounced from her perfect teeth. “Oh yeah?”

“Listen, no one shows up to school as a seven year old to Show and Tell saying, _‘when I grow up, I wanna’ look at numbers!’_ Everyone kinda wanted to be a doctor, lawyer, artist.” Becky teased, her tongue briefly peeking out of her lips in a bashful shape. “Everyone kind of wanted to be some sort of hero.”

“So… your definition of hero, is a hero to alcoholics?”

“Ha! Good one.” Her face fell. “But no, I guess I was different in a way that I just wanted to love and be loved. Well I wanted to have a complete family. Then I kinda’ grew up knowing that was never going to happen so here I am now, just wanting to be complete.” 

Becky laughed it off but Sasha recognized the sting that the woman’s memories carried, because Becky’s gaze never left her coffee and her fingertips lingered in the lid of her cup like it was a comforting touch to the child that was locked inside. A small part of Sasha wanted to empathize, to the smaller extent that she could. 

“Anyway, how about you? I’m _sure_ that you weren’t dying to be looking at screens all day everyday talking to the greediest people in the world.” 

“I-”

The question gave her pause. No one in Wall Street ever asked about dreams - wants, sure, but never dreams. And she tried, she did _try_ to salvage an image of youth buried beneath the digital flicker of the stock exchange and croaky lectures coming from middle-aged men that towered the industry. She looked for blackboards and alphabets where she found charts and false promises.

"I don’t… I actually don’t remember.”

* * *

_Dust erupted out of the long-abandoned bookshelf as her father’s sturdy hands carelessly dropped a stack of books on the surface of the second shelf. When he turned to face Sasha, she fully expected that a strident, yet almost toneless request would quickly follow the stiff upper-lip look that he mustered._

_“Your mother and I expect only the best out of you.”_

_She tried to analyze the distrust that laced his voice like venom, it was always surprising, no matter how frequent. It could have been the long drive from Massachusetts to New York, but who was she kidding? Sasha had little idea where it came from, only that it was always there._

_“My record is unblemished, dad.”_

_“As it should continue to be. God forbid it doesn’t,” he sterned. “You should be accountable about the friends that you make, Sasha. We won’t be there to watch over you. Be prudent.”_

_Between her dad and the wooden luggage that sat beside the bed in her dormitory, she wasn’t sure which one was more antiquated._

_She held back the disrespectful sigh that threatened to escape her lips. “I will.”_

_“You know what to do. Stay away from sin,” he coldly added, and then leaned down to kiss Sasha’s cheeks. “Goodbye sweetie.”_

_Truth be told, she was probably as nervous as her father. Love can be found in many places, even in the icy grip of discipline. It was her father that taught her that. But even then, comfort existed more in the hollow thump of a heavily closed door than the kiss of a loved one; and she wondered why that was the case._

* * *

The fluorescent light flickered dim before her eyes, she could stare at it forever, as her ears followed the sound of light electricity glazing the room like paint. 

“So, you think that was a flashback?” The therapist fixed her glasses, pulling out of her drawer a thick bundle of paper. 

“I didn’t say that it was,” Sasha clarified. “Just that it held the same consistency with the dreams.” 

“The girl was there?” 

“Just the voice,” she trailed off with squinted eyes, thinking that maybe if she thought hard enough, if she remembered, the voice would be more audible. “That could have been the girl’s.”

“I’m going to be honest with you, _Sasha_ , it may or may not be a flashback.” If the therapist attempted a rapport, Sasha did not feel much of it. 

“That’s why I asked for hypnotherapy,” she sighed, irritation vibrating out of her words. It took her exactly a split-second to shake the feeling out. “Regardless, something else bothered me today.”

The therapist gestured for her to continue.

“I’ve had a rather interesting conversation with an acquaintance today. And she brought up something about childhood goals.”

“Didn’t you mention wanting to be President?”

Sasha dryly chuckled. “That I did. Well, my parents told me that I wanted to be President up until highschool.”

“Your parents _told_ you,” the therapist echoed. “I see.” 

A scrutinizing silence fell between both of them, valuable seconds ticking away like sand in an open palm. Fortunately, time can be bought, and slowed, depending on how much one is willing to pay. Sasha waited, but haste influenced her puckered lips. She had always been a patient woman, but patience was only an affordable virtue to those that were chasing nothing. 

“Sasha,” The therapist sat up straight. “Your concerns are valid, and I want you to know that it is indeed a possibility that you might be missing some memories. But as I’ve said before, if it is what we think it might be, there is often a serious reason why the brain would just forget like that.”

She handed Sasha a brown envelope. “I’m returning your medical records, there’s been no damage to your brain - insofar as that report is concerned. Now we can’t speak too early, but that’s why I want to ask for your signed consent regarding an initial assessment.”

“No problem,” Sasha nodded. She was surprised at the incremental enthusiasm that bolstered her affirmation. Though it might be possible that she could have forgotten quite a few things, _feeling_ was something she especially wanted to remember. 

When Sasha left the psychiatrist’s office, a couple of mindless strides hit her with the realization that what was particularly poignant about her conversation with Becky was not about childhood goals and whether she remembered them or not.

It’s just, how universal the want of being complete is. And how much she wanted to become a part of that.

* * *

 _Don’t forget me, promise me that_.

The obscuring voice rang loud against her head, but it was hastily disappearing, a resonance falling deep into an endless well. 

But her own lips quivered in her rest, and they moved but the sound was different - younger, lighter, full of promise. 

_“I won’t.”_


	3. Et tu, Brute?

* * *

**Chapter III: Et tu, Brute?**

_“How is it possible to hate so deeply for deeds not yet done?”_

* * *

“Has this ever happened in your life? Have you ever experienced, or witnessed, or been confronted with traumatic events?” The therapist asked in a clinically monotonous voice, looking at long paper with a far-sighted stare. 

“Depends,” Sasha chewed on a cold carrot, setting up the blender from her living room. The therapist’s camera was at an unrespectable angle but it didn’t matter, she could barely see her screen from the glare of December’s sun. “What do you mean by trauma?”

“Trauma manifests uniquely,” the therapist explained. “Commonly it can be from natural disasters, accidents, being in combat, death-”

“The usual then?” Sasha interrupted. “So far, I don’t think so. I mean, I’ve _maybe_ experienced having to get out of a building from the risk of fire once or twice… but that’s usually common.”

“Can you tell me more about this fire?”

 _It was a fire, what can I tell you?_ “I don’t think there’s anything much to say, it was a campus fire - we were sent home, I didn’t get to see it.” 

It was true. The fire had happened in the School of Arts department, buildings away from Business & Economics. 

“How did you feel about said fire?” 

Sasha shrugged, she really didn’t see it. “We couldn’t pass through the building for a week. Inspections. I guess it was annoying during that time. It was finals week.”

The therapist might have sighed, the heavy breath was disharmonious to the scratchy sound of her fountain pen rapidly scribbling against rough paper. “Alright Ms. Banks, that concludes our session for today. Get well soon.”

* * *

Sasha hadn’t realized that she'd been staring at her thermometer for a while now, consciously drowning the cacophony of cable news and congratulatory notifications that rattled of jealousy more than praise. Her temperature was hotter than normal, she believed that it might have either been because of shorter rests or because someone sneezed in the wrong direction. But there was almost little use thinking about its source.

She was fully intent on going about the rest of the day unbothered. The pace of the city was often slower after major deals anyway. Except, Sasha heard the unique alarm of her personal email.

She snatched her phone away from the coffee table with an uncertain enthusiasm about her thumbs as it hovered above the foggy screen, it traced through an unforeign statement again and again. 

It was a reply from Bayley

_‘I'm okay. Stop messaging me Sasha, it’s not like you care.’_

That was the cold reply after fourteen days, thirty-two messages, thirty-two attempts, and the thirty-two times that Sasha tried to atone for her inaction. Disappointment dictated the frown that painfully burrowed itself against her face. The flu made it physically heavier to muster up some form of expression, but her lips parted to the exit of a heavy sigh.

Because she did feel bad, but the sick feeling didn’t blossom until a couple of days after the fact; when she had to remind herself that the demons were once angels in a distant past - changeable, reformable, beings that just had to remember. She wanted to feel bad, and pity eventually came through in the silence of an empty cubicle. If pity was whatever people called breathing with an empty chest.

She could always pretend that rage flared up inside of her, in the way that what’s left of the women in their office looked up the top floors with angry silence. She could tell everybody else who wanted to hear it that she was seething just like them, that her knuckles bled and her ribcage roared from the attempts to change the world. But it wasn’t true and Sasha did not have friends. No one would ask, and she just couldn’t rationalize the extent of investment.

So maybe, feeling bad was enough. She’ll get there.

At least for now, she deleted the hastily typed ‘ _I’ll be here for you if you need me'_. 

People in pain did not deserve her paper face. 

Sasha resigned her phone above her head at the edge of her couch, the dark of sleep catching up as her throat dried and her body ached. 

* * *

Every house has a secret. Stories hide in them like rot cowering from underneath scenic wallpapers painted in happy colors. 

The sunny afternoon selectively glistened in the broad strokes of oil paint that was left to dry in an unfinished canvas. Sasha had been staring at the painting for a stretch of time that she wasn’t aware of, lost in the tendrils of a woman’s hair. The fable in the image read out like a book before her tender eyes, speaking truths about the fantasies of her tender age.

It was supposed to be beautiful, hence she couldn’t explain the unspoken throb in her heart. It didn’t have a name, her chest was a hollow vessel - empty and suffocating all at once. Even though she existed, the air of a closing day blew through her anyway. 

She didn’t know how she felt, just that she hoped that she could be light like paper if she wasn’t going to be big and strong - so that wings could sprawl from beneath her arms. So that she could _truly_ feel like flying. It was the only thing that she wanted to do.

“Sasha!”

Her mother’s name was Olivia. She was told that it meant olive tree, the birthplace of the olive branch. It meant peace, it meant kindness, it meant ‘I forgive you’. Her mother’s tact - of course, its lack thereof - needed a lot of forgiving. 

The thud of agile footsteps closed in and suddenly she could no longer feel infinity in the air of her room. Neither her or the room's size changed but she became too big for the world to bear. Panicked lines of a middle-aged forehead met her gaze, and she felt like she knew exactly why. 

“Your father’s looking for you.”

She has walked through these narrow halls once upon a million times before; although sometimes, she was gliding, the other times, she was crawling. The wind whistled and leeched into the barren spaces within the croaking wood, it announced her steps like a shameful punishment.

Her father’s room was sealed shut, its door twice as thick as the walls that protected their mansion. He welcomed her in - as the sight of books and what looked to be relics greeted her like the remnants of a desecrated church. The only warmth in that room was a flickering candle- fighting the artificial glow of the fluorescent light. It was so bright that there was no comfortable corner to hide her flaws and lick her wounds. There was so much light in the room that her eyes had to darken.

“I just want to talk.”

She wanted to fly away.

* * *

Sasha woke up in her hair, her breath catching up to the rhythm of her chest, where soldiers marched to an anthem that denied her of its confessions. Other people described dread so perfectly as if they have known its name and dined with it for years. 

There were monsters in their night, but at least they knew what was out there. Because there is nothing more fearsome than a nameless being. This, to her, was dread. Always reaching for the face of her heart’s undoing, never successful, always many steps away. If she remembered what she ate in every dream, she was sure that they would have tasted like ashes.

Habitually, she reached out for her phone to check the time. An unknown number greeted her.

_‘Hey! You weren’t at the coffee shop this morning, I was gonna’ tell you myself. Didn’t wanna’ feel stalkerish but here I am- cashing in on the number that you gave. So remember the band that you liked? Well I got free tickets to their concert. I don’t really know anyone else who listens to these folks. Y’know how it is, most of my friends have taste.”_

Like the quietude of unadvertised grace, Sasha felt her heartbeat steady. Her focus was anchored towards a linear, and earthy direction. She paused to think of what to type before another text message followed shortly after.

_‘Was wondering if you wanted them? And, BTW, totally not asking you out! In case you were wondering.’_

_God_ , Sasha’s eyes narrowed with fleeting mirth. If her mind could wander aloud, it would look for where the hell someone at their age could find the spirit to speak bare, with their fists confidently unclenched. It was almost stupid. And fascinating. And relieving.

‘ _I wasn’t thinking that.’_ She replied, quickly adding, _‘I got sick today, opted to stay home. I’d be happy to take the tickets off your hands, how much is it?’_

‘ _Awwwwwwwww’_ the other woman dared send, it was at that point that Sasha realized that she had been trying to tinker at the conversation. ‘ _Wait, you’re sick? I happen to be free as a bird today. Want soup? I wouldn’t want the economy crashing just cause’ Becky Lynch didn’t try to become a decent human being for one day.’_

She raised a brow, _‘I’m good.’_

A full minute passed, Sasha only noticed as the last number to 3:43 changed into 4. 

_‘So, how much did you want the ticket for again?’_ She texted again.

‘ _No, it’s free.’_ The reply came almost too fast. _‘Think of it as my humble contribution to the free hand.’_

A short laugh escaped Sasha. The girl made way too many Marxist jokes. She knew that it wouldn’t be the case, but it almost seemed as if Becky just learned about the philosophy of capital yesterday.

_‘Thanks, I appreciate it.’_

Sasha set her phone down and walked towards her bedroom, the oversized shirt she wore grazing against her bare thighs. She slipped into her bed as a cool blanket enveloped her body like the onset of a beautiful metamorphosis. She could sleep inside the cold of it, because from then on, her life would be comprised only of frozen dreams. The land where people still felt and where no one that walked was just a shell.

The phone’s notification ring pulled her back into the concrete walls of her bedroom. 

_‘Actually, didn’t you mention that you just lived across the bar? Funny story, I’m actually just around the area. Would you like me to drop off the tix at your lobby? Cause’ if not I’ll keep forgetting to give it to you. Then there goes my chance of being useful haha!’_

_‘I’ll send you my address.’_

* * *

The security rang her unit’s phone when Becky arrived at her lobby, telling her that there was a large paper bag that she could pick up. It had listed two concert tickets, an entire meal, and a bottle of wine - the same brand and date that she ordered about a week or two ago. 

Sasha Banks did not have friends. Though it wasn’t their fault, women often viewed her as competition and the men got a little too attached - but she never felt an inch of reciprocity for either case. In fact, she didn’t blame anyone. Not fate, not the way in which God had built greed within people when he breathed life into their sinews. No one else was to blame for her detachment. It was just the stroke of luck. People were just people and Sasha was just herself. 

_‘Package delivered ma’am.’_

Sasha could feel the smug grin that tugged at Becky’s lips even from their digital barrier, smiling to herself as her heels pivoted towards the exit of Sasha’s condominium lobby. 

_‘Wait,’_ Sasha hastily texted. She did not have friends and it wasn’t her fault before, but _damn_ , it would be her fault now. 

_‘Come up.’_

* * *

“So, what are you afraid of?” Becky pushed a lukewarm glass of water over the coffee table towards the corner that Sasha was closest to. Her eyes were incredibly fixed towards the glass, as if it was afraid to roam. But for the hour that they had been talking, Sasha caught familiarizing glances towards the corners of her flat.

Sasha drank from the glass and mouthed a version of thank you. “Afraid of? Where did that come from?”

“You know.” Becky shrugged, she had been avoiding staring at Sasha for too long ever since she had arrived - intently looking at her eyes rather than elsewhere for every time their gaze would meet. “You know how people ask so many questions to know a person? Like, what’s your job, favorite food, etcetera. But really, all they have to ask is their fears.”

“I think I’ve heard of this before.” Sasha pinched the bridge of her nose, a small headache flourishing from her right temple. “Something along the lines of… _‘if they do not fear anything, they do not believe in anything’_?” 

Becky looked impressed, she only nodded but amusement cracked from the corners of her mouth.

“What? I read too.” Sasha proudly pursed her lips, they relished victory for the good half of a minute. “Well, I guess I don’t like long lines or people canceling appointments. _Maybe_ I fear that I’ll mess up and be wrong in the next short.”

The red-haired woman’s face lit up. An embarrassed laughter broke out of her lungs and it had the tremor of childish glee - it was unfortunate to see it fade the minute that Becky’s head tilted towards the wide glass panels. The skies were tinted with the low saturation of five o’ clock’s ugly blue.

“I guess it’s irrational, but for me… I’m afraid of wide roads,” she started, a sad smile completing her downcast gaze. “I’m uncomfortable with the countryside, the silence. Sometimes, of beautiful afternoons.”

Sasha would ask why, but it felt like interrupting. So she let the moment past, but if anybody asked her, she wanted the vicarious melancholy that she felt at that very moment. It was almost as if just staring at Becky already made her _feel_. 

“So, do you wanna’ see my mini library?”

* * *

The mini library was in her study. The study was in her bedroom. Go figure as to why the shade of red invaded Becky’s cheap tan. Becky treaded Sasha’s trail and it almost felt she was tiptoeing - as if her soles weren’t supposed to be there, touching expensive cherry flooring. 

“Most of my books from the university are still here,” Sasha pointed at the threatening shelf of textbooks with bold texts that read, Economics, or Finance, or Accounting-something. “But the literature section is over there.”

They were mostly classics, ranging from abridged novels to a collection of poetry. A thin layer of dust covered this section of the study. 

“You like Hemingway?” Becky raised her brow, her eyes darting between the literature and the textbook section. She marveled at the sight of hardcovers. The books that were in there were of the expensive variant. 

“Sometimes. I don’t remember much of him.” 

Their eyes locked for a second. A mischievous glint flickered in Becky’s eyes which flooded to her lips that twisted into a smirk. “What about Jane Austen?”

“Fuck off!” Sasha snickered. “I’m not twelve.”

“Could’ve fooled me.” Becky shrugged and gestured an insult towards Sasha’s height to which Sasha responded to by feigning disappointment - they both knew that _if_ there was a difference in their height, it would be just about an inch. 

“No really?” 

“No!” Sasha rolled her eyes. “I read her in highschool I think, or was it first year college or this one summer? Didn’t enjoy it, it was a painful read.” 

Becky was half paying attention, her mind was lost in observation. There were far too many books, and at the time she was staring at a thinly-spined manual. “No, no. You know I was kidding. I had to write a critique for it once? Longest, boringest day of my life. Almost made me want to regurgitate literature as a whole. It just wasn’t worth the review.”

“Yup.” Sasha took a couple of steps back to sit on her bed. Her head was getting heavier.

Becky plucked out the manual that she has been looking at, blinking a couple of times like its cover was written in a language she could distantly recognize - but couldn’t understand. 

“Sasha…?”

“Yeah?” Sasha was rubbing her forehead, her eyes closed into slight relaxation.

It was an incredibly dated student handbook.

“Did you ever go to Martin Burns High School?” Becky’s voice quivered, and she wasn’t exactly sure why. Her head rocked slightly back and forth, nodding, as if there was an ongoing argument between her head and her heart. 

“Yeah, I didn’t finish there though. My family moved to Boston midway. I didn’t know that one managed to find its way on my shelf, I should probably throw that.” 

“Sasha,” Becky breathed, her voice was small but it still carried its melodious undertone. “If I may ask?”

“-May, may I know what your surname is?”

“Banks.”

Becky looked pale. Too pale to be living, as if her soul had left her body. 

“Sasha Banks,” she almost laughed, in the barest tone anyone could have ever mustered. 

Her departure wasn’t announced, all that Sasha knew was that Becky walked out of her flat slowly, weaving through dead air with her limp shoulders and even weaker eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp. Brb gotta' recover


	4. Not Pictured

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't own these obviously fictional characters. However, any similarities that may reflect actual situations may or may not be coincidental. ^_^ Hope you all enjoy this one. Stay sane, and stay safe!

* * *

**Chapter 4: Not Pictured**

_“Do you remember, Axl, there was a talk last winter of a sprite seen near our village? We never saw it ourselves, but they said it was one fond of the dark. In all those hours we had of darkness, I’m thinking it might sometimes have been with us without our knowing, in our very chamber, and brought me this trouble.”_

_“We would have known had it been with us, princess, dark or not. Even in thick blackness, we would have heard it move or give a sigh.”_

* * *

Sasha stared at the blackness of her extremely ordinary, mild roast, Americano. Steam billowed out of it, further desaturating what was already the early morning’s faint color. It was interesting how, on certain seasons, both 6 AM and 6 PM looked exactly alike. 

It was Friday. Again. She knew that not only because her inbox doubled, but because she was somehow, counting. It has been more than a week since she’s been back to drinking the blandness of burnt bean water. Since Becky stopped ordering for her.

Sasha added sugar, while it was hot so it could dissolve properly - because she did not hate herself very much. But maybe other people did. She wasn’t sure why, but they kind of just _leave_. 

_Oh well,_ she sighed. There wasn’t a lot that she could do about it. 

“Oh hey, look at that!” A sandpaper voice drilled through the cafe. She would say that she could forget who it belonged to, but he wouldn’t let _anyone_ forget. Not after climbing past the already high ranks of Wall Street, that point at which, no matter what you did - you could just stay on top.

The footsteps were quick, he launched himself in front of her, pulling a vacant seat from behind him towards her table. 

“Banks.”

“Rollins.” She tried not to stare, but he met her eyes anyway as his head rolled down to confront her downcast gaze. The whispers behind the women’s restroom was that he was looking for a new _bestfriend_.

“You don’t seem happy.” He sneered, “Is this about that chick beside your desk?”

“It’s a Friday, just a little busy.”

He regurgitated an uncomfortable cackle. “Busy? Doing your job I hope!”

Sasha crossed her arms, tongue in cheek, and ready for confrontation. If there was any person that she had never failed, it was her job. “What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“Oh nothing,” he whistled, like a hollow wind slipping past the gaps of a toothy grin. “Just congratulations.”

“Thank you,” she managed to say, through the small opening of her hesitant lips. The surgically sound part of her knew the vanity that proudly paraded itself in the man’s voice. 

His fingertips played jarring beats against the wooden table before comfortably patting it to stand up and bid her farewell. He briefly turned around before giving her a chance to respond.

“Oh and you might want to check those emails. You can thank me _again_ later.”

It didn’t take a lot of seconds before Sasha realized that she _owed_ the bastard. To find out exactly _how_ , Sasha promptly plucked her phone to check the latest emails. It appeared as if Seth had inserted himself in the email chain with the firm’s top client.

_‘Dear Mr. Reigns,_

_I, Seth, and the rest of the company would like to apologize for erroneously distributing the old version of the contracts to our client managers. We hope that it is not too much of an inconvenience if you could take the time to fill out a new one._

_Thank you.’_

This type of message was only ever sent to Roman. 

He knew that the message was almost irrelevant. Seth and Roman were friends; just like how Roman and Vince were friends; just like how Seth and Vince were friends; just like how Seth and Roman and Vince and Paul and tens of other old boys were friends. They were practically attached to the hip, or whatever’s left of it from the accumulation of poorly executed golf swings and bourgeois basketball. Contracts between them could and have been written on tissue paper - and no one bat an eye. The formalities weren’t necessary. He _knew_ that.

The email was a threat and Sasha sees it coming from a state away.

She was a couple of mistakes away from Bayley.

* * *

Sasha Banks did not have friends. There were people who despised her and then there were strangers. So when her thumbs scrolled past an incredibly long contact list to find how exactly alone she was, she opted to think that it was better off that way. She, however, was not going to lie and say that the screen didn’t linger at the ‘B’ section of the alphabetically-sorted list before she had decided against it.

People turn to alcohol to forget, Sasha did to remember. Her soles moved to the direction of habit as it took her back to the same, unsurprisingly crowded bar. It didn’t matter. Wall Street too, was loud. They were the same voices anyway. 

Really, you can leave the financial district but the financial district never leaves you. Suits drone on and on about the same ambitions, the same clients, the same factory-perfume; and god forbid, the same color of business cards - whether it was of the shade of eggshells or of bones, they were all white. 

So, everything was ordinary and right as rain.

“Shiraz,” Sasha told the regular bartender. 

“The usual?”

“The usual.”

They nodded at each other, eager to finish the transaction and go off on their own, merry way. He searched for the specific request amongst the perfectly lined-up top shelf brands and started pouring. Without the concentration found at the bottom of her glass, Sasha’s eyes roamed uneasily. 

She could really talk to Bayley. They had said ‘hi’ to each other enough to come at the cusp of almost-friends. The girl was too warm and nauseatingly sweet, and maybe that made her a little uncomfortable _at first_ . But it quickly faded into routine until it wasn’t and she was gone - perhaps, _because_ of the same attributes too. 

And that was why, for the longest of time she thought that _maybe_ , to a very minuscule extent, Bayley had set herself up for it. She could gag at the unwanted thought, and so she hastily pushed it out of her head. 

Her eyes skirted past the sea of faceless strangers. The miserable panorama before her eyes tripped at the sight of red hair just a couple of tiles away from her. 

How did she not notice? 

It was Becky and she looked sorry, she really did - to anyone that was looking. If it had looked as if she was desperate with a bottleneck bruised under the tightness of her grip, as she kissed them and they begged her not to because they had been empty for a long time. 

She wondered,

_Why?_

She hasn’t seen grief if it was knocking at her door, even when its silvery tears wept at her rug and called out her name. Sasha’s only ever observed it from cities away through a looking glass - where there was only disappearing smoke instead of fire. 

“I wrote you, you know?” It seemed as if Becky had caught her stare, and Sasha… well, she didn’t want to meet it. Because a split-second of it and she had already felt like she was burning. Sasha did not know what Becky meant, but _god_ , she was burning.

It was at that point where she recognized that the sunset was just a pretty interpretation of a dying star - from miles and years away. 

“Every Wednesday, because I didn’t want to be creepy and to make sure you were still in on it.” Becky took a swig of beer, adding another empty bottle to the crowding table. “And then it was every twenty-seventh… and then it became every year.” 

_Pity,_ she thought. _Pity,_ maybe that’s how she felt. She would say it again and again and it would stop meaning the same. 

“You never _fucking_ replied.”

Pity. Pity. Pity.

It stopped meaning the same but it had only gotten more uncomfortable as invisible words slipped past her breath. 

“Don’t fucking do that that.” Becky seemed like she referred to Sasha, her voice melodious and piercing, all at once shooting towards a singular direction. She was so, _so_ , _so very_ drunk. Undoubtedly, Becky was looking at her. “Don’t look at me like that.”

“What?” 

_I don’t understand._

Becky’s eyebrows furrowed in the attempt to squeeze out words, but then tears spilled on behalf of language. It had felt like the longest minute in New York City. She opened her mouth, and her lips and her lungs and her tongue looked like they tried to lift something out from underneath her chest.

“Like,” her voice cracked and then she let out an unsettling chain of broken laughter, ‘-like you didn’t know me.” 

“As if, _all of it was_ a mistake you regret.”

She didn’t understand. 

Not one bit. Not at all. 

Sasha walked away, Becky was drifting off, it was her friend’s bar and someone else was going to take care of her.

* * *

“How much has this affected what you do in the office?” The therapist looked bored, of course, nobody really knew how to behave on a Wednesday afternoon.

Sasha leaned into her knuckles that supported her right temple, unconsciously rubbing that echo of a headache that managed to bring out of her a look of distress. “The Bayley issue?” 

“Mhm.” 

“I don’t know,” she sighed, “it could be the cause of some lapses. But I’ve thought about it and it just doesn’t make a lot of sense. If it was going to affect me, it should have happened weeks ago.”

“Well, her reply was certainly a new development. How do you feel about that?”

“Deserved.” Sasha abruptly replied.

“In what sense?”

“She was in pain, no one was there. Of course she would feel like that.”

The therapist’s eyes narrowed into a pensive line. It seemed as if her silence encouraged Sasha’s words to roll by but there was really nothing left to say. The next part of _that_ conversation had already played out in Sasha’s head and she knew that it would end exactly where the conversation had begun. 

“Anyway,” Sasha steered. “That’s besides the point. The missent contract was probably an anomaly and I might be better off consulting the ophthalmologist than you. My eyesight has been weird as of late.”

If she had said anything interesting, she most definitely missed her own words as the therapist brought out the journal.

“Eyesight?”

Sasha scoffed in quiet judgment, somewhat perplexed by the strange direction of the conversation. “Yeah, the focus is off, kind of like a broken camera.”

“A broken camera...” the therapist muttered to herself. She started to take notes. “How long has this been occurring?”

“Maybe a week, or two. I’m not sure, I didn’t really notice until I’ve been getting headaches past the flu.” 

“Would you happen to experience any other symptoms or anything off of the ordinary for the span of those said weeks?” 

Sasha momentarily paused. Ordinary didn’t exactly have a fixed definition. What was ordinary to her wasn’t ordinary to others. If so, what kind of world would it be if _ordinary_ was to stand atop tall skyscrapers, look down, and _know_ that each one of the eight million people of New York’s population _actually_ had monetary equivalents. Surely, in someone else’s eyes, the world has a pulse and it beats with different colors.

“Well, there was this one instance, a couple of days ago.” She attempted to recall the feeling and reel herself back to last Friday. “The girl that stopped talking to me, the one with the hair that’s of disconcerting red? I saw her and she kept-”

She swallowed thickly, “crying. Drunk, and referring to me like she had known me for years.”

“Does she?”

“No,” Sasha sterned, but the decisive air retreated as soon as it had come out. “Not that I know of.” 

It was statistically unlikely, and it would continue to remain that way if she could trust what she knows.

“Well, does that bother you?”

Sasha stared at the window. It wasn’t too bad of an afternoon, not too late of one either.

“Well, yeah. Maybe I’m a little bothered.”

* * *

Her soles found themselves elevated against the curb of a Boston suburb, in front of a house that had been empty longer than it had been unoccupied. She couldn’t exactly remember what got her there, just that she was. Her watch just told her that it had been about three hours and thirty-four minutes since she had found herself walking away from New York and into the airport. There was her then, and there was her now, and everything else in between evaporated like minutes burnt into a smoky blur.

Whether dirty wind blew towards the house or if the living room had suctioned it, the air was heavy all the same. Dry leaves came with it like condolences. She frowned because they knew so little. A part of her had long been dead before her parents passed, and it just took the now to notice.

She stepped inside to find familiarity seep into her bones, carving life out of it instead of filling her with joy. And for that moment right there, she felt like she’s _home_ \- tethered to flesh and history. Comfort doesn’t just come in a comfortable package.

In the stretch of the house’s walls were certificates, medals, graduation pictures and trophies. Her father was an egotistic man, she was his pride and glory. Everything looks perfect but lived-in, more perfect now that there was none who roamed the halls. Because the leather couch looked much more comfortable without the tears of a mother who pretended that she had just passed out on the couch to excuse herself from the bedroom. 

Sasha knew that. They thought that she didn’t know but never stopped to think if she merely just didn’t care.

She walked towards the frames, and the pictures lined up like a montage of an ugly butterfly that retreated into a beautiful cocoon. It was an entire story told from one class picture, to another club picture, to trophies and dates, to a smile that slowly left her eyes. 

People often couldn’t pinpoint the millisecond that they had started to grow up, she knew that she couldn’t. But _damn_ , it could never get close to this. She could barely remember it, it was lifetimes ago. But in front of her was the last time her lips ever stretched from one side of her face to another, reaching her eyes with an infectious mirth. 

_Youth for Art Collective, Batch 2009._

Below were names of members that feel distant, just a combination of proper nouns from books and mythology and from the Bible. And at the last line it had printed:

_Not Pictured: Rebecca Lynch._

* * *

_“Alright, alright!” The assistant senior of the club moderator’s clap was accompanied by a flamboyant resonance that gutturally escaped his throat. “Welcome to the Art Collective, ladies and… ladies.”_

_The one o'clock sun scorched painfully against Sasha’s skin, nervousness vibrating out of it as visible strands of thin hair stood despite the lack of cold. She clutched to her chest the waxy mess of trees and galaxy trapped in the edges of a bond paper. It was only the second meeting, she hadn’t known anybody yet - but the anonymity pumped an electric frenzy into her dormant veins._

_The assistant took out a dramatically decorated fishbowl and plucked out a thin, rolled piece of paper from within it. “Sasha Banks,” he announced. “Nickname, age, year level, and what do you have for us today.”_

_She stood up and taped to the blackboard an experimentally abstract interpretation of a horizon at dusk, a combination of crayon and watercolor breathing life into the skies and the grass that it looks down upon._

_“S-...” She started out nervously. She had never been in front of a crowd to present anything that involved truths that echoed in her chest. “Sasha, sophomore, sixteen years old. This work is entitled 'If The Skies Could Speak.'”_

_“What’s it about?” A boisterous and low voice interrupted the attentive spell that hushed the class and broke through the buzzing sound of the broken air conditioner. The owner of the voice ‘looked’ smug but not arrogant, full of delight rather than conceit._

_But Sasha didn’t think that people could ask questions._

_She was not able to prepare for that. No one ever asks. Why some things are beautiful, why the trees are bent in a certain way, why the color of her skies are turquoise instead of sapphire. She shot the assistant a look and he returned it with an encouraging smile. He probably thought she was just nervous but the fact is that she did not know what to say._

_After what felt like a full minute, she swallowed the lump in her throat. “I’m sorry?”_

_The class laughed but the asker didn’t._

_"Oh,” she rephrased, “what made you make ‘that’?”_

_To which Sasha could answer with a lot of things. Only one type of answer made sense, though. “It’s where I want to disappear to- I think, that, maybe in the meadows with the birds and the beast; things wouldn’t feel so alone.” She smiled, it wasn’t a lot but it felt relieving to be able to admit that._

_When Sasha went back to her seat she had come to realize that the asker was in fact her seatmate. This didn’t go unnoticed as the auburn-haired clubmate turned towards her._

_“I like your painting.”_

_“Thanks…?” She didn’t really know how to respond, criticism usually followed such a plain complement._

_“Your name too.”_

_“Sorry?”_

_“I like your name too,” she pressed on as she leaned towards Sasha and extended a short hand towards the girl. “You’re Sasha.”_

_“I’m Becky, Lynch.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so it begins


	5. Spring Awakening

* * *

**Chapter 5: Spring Awakening**

_The stranger thought it might be God himself had forgotten much from our pasts, events far distant, events of the same day. And if a thing is not in God’s mind, then what chance of it remaining in those of mortal men?_

* * *

_Sasha caught herself staring at the glass window. There were two droplets that stood out amidst heavy rain, racing to join the miniature body of water that coalesced by the windowsill. The droplet on the right would win and perish, she was almost certain. But it wouldn’t be the first to lose itself in the sea of its kind._

_“It’s kind of strange don’t you think?” She muttered, her eyes disengaged from the therapist. “To be able to live out the rest of your life and not realize that there’s a gap from between point A and point B.”_

_“Is this about you visiting your parents’ home?”_

_It probably was, but Sasha was just wondering aloud. “Maybe.”_

_“Well,” the therapist started. “Are you asking me what I think?”_

_“It’d be a welcome input.” Sasha glanced at her for a fading second, the therapist’s extra critical gaze unable to match the arctic chill that glazed her own skin. Past the windows were leafless trees and winter coats._

_“Well I think that life doesn’t always have to be a puzzle. People forget for different reasons and sometimes it just happens.” The therapist probably saw dissatisfaction in the twitch of Sasha’s lips. “-But some people do see it as a puzzle, and may… feel uncomfortable with incomplete pieces. And I guess that’s what my job is. To help them either pick up those pieces, or be okay with not having to and feel whole within themselves.”_

_Sasha was quiet in her seat, her fingertips and blood-polished nails drumming lightly against the frame of the leather couch._

_“I just don’t think I can imagine a life where i’d feel complete without knowing.” She modestly shook her head, hand to her beating chest. Perhaps a touch of magic could slow it down and catch up with her blank expression, if she ever had a pinch of magic in the stillness of her veins. “After knowing for certain that I - do not.”_

_She knows, now she knows. That once upon a time, she had felt and she was real._

* * *

The rain has muddied the school park, soiling the outskirts of the covered walk. Sasha found her haven in a mildly-drenched gazebo that was far from where the classrooms were. Although it was late into the school’s after hours, the bell still blasted a deafening tune across most campus grounds. Except for this one spot where it would sound a little muffled. 

She couldn’t decide if she were to pray or draw. One was cathartic, the other was redemptive. The fresh sheet of bond paper had already been set on the dry spot of the table, but her hands were folded too. Once she’d close her eyes, the decision would have been made.

But it happened to be one of those days when her soul needed saving, so Sasha closed her eyes. Dry leaves grazed against rough pavement, and the sound was oddly calming. She opened her mouth but she was unsure of where to start, but she reminded herself of the structure. 

Adoration. Confession. Thanksgiving. Supplication. They said that God’s ears are more open towards an orderly worship. 

Sasha opened her mouth to find her own voice, so that she could breathe apologies into her clasped hands, hoping that they would find their way to heaven. Maybe, after an amen, guilt would wash away from her skin like cleansing rain. 

“What are you doing?” Her vision wasn’t completely closed when the depth of a curious voice forced her eyes open.

Becky looked like hell. She greeted Sasha with tousled hair and sunken eyes - barely surviving, from the wrath of a teacher scorned so close to the midterm exams. She had certainly absorbed all the telltale signs of an insomniac, except for the lilt of a boyish grin that told everyone that she wasn’t dead inside.

“I-” _I was praying,_ Sasha wanted to say, torn between amusement and mild irritation. No one else had bothered to roam this part of the school, much less talk to a nobody. Becky was cool for that. But it was high school, and religion wasn’t cool. “I was sleeping.”

It was such a poor excuse and she wanted to slap herself in the face. 

“Oh, that’s cute,” Becky laughed, sitting next to her. “You look like my dad, sleeping with hands clasped.” 

“I know!” _Ugh._ Sasha joined in the burst of dry laughter, only to have accidentally added a couple of giggles past Becky’s interval. 

Becky narrowed her eyes. “No, seriously, were you… praying?” 

Sasha’s face flushed red with an embarrassment that she instantly regretted. Once again her heart beat as if it wanted to jump out of her chest, the immediate feeling of guilt filling her like parental echoes that had warned against being ashamed of God. “I guess, I was. Yes.” 

“Yeah, you seemed kind of serious in there.”

“Yeah…” Sasha trailed off, her limbs closed up as they adjusted to having so little left of their personal space.

As if sensing the tension, Becky inched further away from Sasha, while her elbows kept to the table. “What was it about?”

Sasha gave Becky an open-mouthed smile, it was difficult to explain religion. How do you explain to someone that the world is actually its opposite? That to believe is to see, and that, when struck by an enemy - you must turn the other cheek? 

“It wasn’t anything interesting.”

It was when the encroaching dark of the evening sliced through what’s little left of light that Sasha concluded that maybe no one else would understand. 

“So why are you still out here, it’s so late?”

“Why are you?”

Becky shrugged. “Community service.”

 _A sanction?_ The words rolled so foreign in the voice of Sasha’s mind. Becky was grinning and for the stretch of a minute, she wondered why Becky’s parents hadn't killed her yet. 

“My mom told me that my dad was going to be late.”

“It’s been four hours.” Becky shot her a contemplative look, as if _she’s_ now the one who’s foreign. It wasn’t too uncomfortable. Becky nodded without an expressed judgment. “If you ever need a ride, just let me know, okay?”

“Sure.” But she wouldn’t ever. It would be a death sentence. “So… your community service is done, why are _you_ still here?”

“I don’t know actually,” Becky cocked an unsure grin. “Was planning to go home but I figured I’d wait with ya’.”

Sasha didn’t know how to respond. Eventually, she didn’t have to. Farewells rolled out of her tongue quicker than the milliseconds that separated the blaring beeps of her father’s horns. 

* * *

_“That’s certainly interesting,” the therapist surveyed a stack of paper in front of Sasha. She was growing into the habit of multi-tasking, and it felt almost disrespectful. “What do you remember?”_

_“That we were friends, a long time ago.”_

* * *

The finals week rolled out in a blur of test papers and busy afternoons. The Art Collective had decided to initiate a little project called, ‘Awakening’ - which didn’t really stray far from its definition. The moderator required them to: ‘discover and awaken a sleeping desire’ to report about for the next week. It had sounded flowery, of course. Sasha was almost certain that the dude was trying to be funny. 

“So what are you planning to do for Awakening?” Becky hurried to walk beside Sasha as the last bell marked the club’s dismissal. 

“Are we supposed to know, if it’s a ‘sleeping desire’?” Sasha felt like she could perfect the impression of their overtly dramatic moderator, since he had sounded like a wilting rose - a little too old to be sighing in the way that he did. “I haven’t thought about it much. Plus, I’ve got Algebra to worry about.”

“Oh come on!”

“What?”

“I don’t know,” Becky shrugged nonchalantly, sheepish in the way that she skipped across the pavement in an attempt to keep up with Sasha’s hurried pace. 

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know? Live a little?”

Sasha stopped. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It’s just,” Becky scratched the back of her head, almost shyly glancing over her shoulder to check if they had been blocking the walkway. “When you first came in you were all about creativity, and now, it’s like you’re not even trying."

"I am trying,” she replied, picking up her former pace before Becky sped up and blocked her. Irritation flowed in the vein that pushed itself visibly at the top of her forehead. 

“What do you want Becky?”

“First week of club, you painted a panorama. It was beautiful and I- I just felt it, I can’t even explain it but it spoke.” Becky drew a sigh, trouble seemed to burrow itself deep in the trenches between her eyebrows. “The next next week? You drew an apple. And then, you painted a fucking chair. And earlier, an ocean with only two shades of blue.”

“Are you saying that’s not art?” 

“It’s not _you_.”

School was exhausting, the house was exhausting, but the art club did not need to be _this_ exhausting. “You don’t know me,” Sasha elbowed herself past Becky, slowly walking away. 

“I don’t,” Becky nodded to herself. She wasn’t sure if Sasha would be able to hear her but she tried to make the next few words as audible as she could. “That can be changed!”

Becky didn't know it then but Sasha heard her, if the small and unsure smile that tugged at her lips was any evidence of such.

* * *

_“Close friends?”_

_“Maybe,” Sasha stopped to think, staring at the walls long enough until she could recall what was so recently remembered. “I think, I think we were.”_

* * *

Her parents had always warned her against strangers. It was funny because they’ve read her fairytales too. And somehow they never noticed, that salvation always arrives in a blur of a speeding white horse - often carrying a stranger on its back. 

The first time she was able to ride on the passenger’s seat, it was in Becky’s beaten-down car. It pulled like reckless youth, nothing that an adult would ever own. It wasn’t for anywhere far, just for an afterschool activity errand, and it wasn’t for too long. It wasn’t anything dangerous either but her chest pumped a cocktail of thrill and danger as the rocky blare of an old engine slowly accelerated. 

"May I open the windows?" Sasha asked. It was probably the courteousness that caused Becky to glance over her, just to make sure she wasn’t kidding.

“Why the fuck not?”

Sasha rolled the windows and out of the car wafted a stream of hair and loud music, defying Becky’s speed. They weren’t hailed from a rural area but the air was earthy enough to smell of trees and freedom. 

_This is the universe,_ she felt her inner voice echo. Her ribcage roared to the pounding of a heart that was alive. If the purpose of everything created had to be bottled in a single moment. She felt that this would be it. Isn’t it? Doesn’t heaven only exist insofar as men could comprehend its existence? _This is the universe._

She felt Becky’s stolen glances, few and far between as they were.

“What?” The residue of a smile stayed in the corners of Sasha’s lips. 

“I’m just amused, is all. Don’t mind me.”

“You’re judging.” Sasha crossed her arms, but even with the words that rolled out of her tongue, she couldn’t get rid of the torrent of butterflies that flew free within her chest. 

“I was _wondering,”_ Becky chuckled, “there’s a difference.”

“About?”

“Nah, you’re gonna’ hate me.”

“I’ll hate you anyway.”

“ _Okayy_. You make an excellent point.” 

“So?”

“Nothing. Was just wondering if...” Becky licked her lips and shook her head, almost in disbelief of what she was about to say. “Would this be your first time in a speeding car? I mean! No offense, but your dad looked like he drove slow.”

“Actually, yeah,” Sasha lamented. “It is my first time in the passenger’s seat.”

She continued, “In a speeding car with the windows open.”

* * *

_“Ms. Banks, did you mention that your parents were devout Christians?” The therapist lit up, readjusting herself from the paralyzingly comfortable leather seat. “To what extent would you remember this devoutness to be?”_

_“Born and raised,” Sasha replied, unable to rationalize why exactly that mattered - but she answered anyway. Psychiatrists after all, were the experts. “And, at a ministry level. They ran around pastors as far as I know.”_

_“How, would you say, did this affect your home environment as a kid?”_

_“Just like in any other house,” Sasha said flatly, the nonchalance almost disappearing into the sound of heavy rain. “There were rules, there are always rules.”_

_“Can you give me an example of these rules?”_

_“No alcohol, that’s one.”_

* * *

“My dad is so going to kill me!” Sasha's palms smacked hard against her face as she found herself helplessly sprawled against Becky’s couch.

Becky bit back the grin that struggled its way out of her face. “What did you tell your dad anyway?”

“Science project!” Sasha’s cheeks flushed.

Art Week finally arrived and came with it were the negotiations for incentives and extra credit. It so happened that their forty year old science teacher who’s been hard towards an entire generation of students had a soft spot for artistry. Who would’ve thought? As a response, an equally closing-the-age-of-senile club moderator was happy to extend the theme of ‘Awakening’.

“Well, you’re not wrong.” Becky was met with a particularly weighted sigh. She followed Sasha’s gaze and it stared at the curious bottle that stood threateningly polished on top of Becky’s coffee table. “You do know that you don’t have to do it, you know?”

“I just don’t know what else to do?”

“You could,” Becky’s thoughts drew blanks, “maybe try to eat a food you’ve never had before?”

“I don’t know what it is about street food that screams art to you.”

“You haven’t had street food?”

“I figured I wouldn’t be missing much, just was never in the dietary plan I guess?”

“Dietary plan?” Becky’s yelp faded far too quickly into a soft exhale. “Jeez.”

Quietude filled the air and they both just _knew_ that somehow, the mood had shifted.

“I know,” she gave Becky a raised-brow affirmation, spilling sighs out of its rise. Sasha knew from the onset that friends wouldn’t understand, and that there’s a reason why friends were called friends and not family. She almost felt guilty for enjoying this. “I just feel like they’d know somehow, you know?”

“Sash,” Becky murmured. Sasha thought that, maybe that was the first time she has ever heard a nickname that didn’t yell so authoritatively - that wasn’t the conditional affection of a pleased adult. “We don’t have to do it if you don’t want to. We’ll find something else.”

Sasha didn’t respond with anything other than a nod. Even then, Becky smiled as if she knew the gratitude that hid behind the slightness of her actions.

“Parents that strict huh?”

“Strict… I guess that’s the word.”

Her first sip of alcohol didn’t come until a few months later, but at that moment, Sasha felt like she could be safe.

* * *

_“We’re almost out of time, I guess I’ll see you again next week?”_

_Sasha shook her head. The sessions have gone on for a couple thousands of dollars already, and the gradual change experienced had been of her own doing. “Wait.”_

_“Yes?”_

_“You’ve been writing a lot.” Sasha pursed her lips in contemplation, searching for a response in the quirks of the therapist’s face. “And I’ve been here for quite a while.”_

_“You’ve observed correctly, yes.”_

_“So....”_

_Sasha repeated the words in her head again and again, rephrasing them like a rapidly shifting labyrinth, cutting into eloquent corners - but somehow ending up in a singular, jagged truth._

_“What is wrong with me?”_

_“Nothing’s wrong with you,” the therapist was quick to respond. “But if you’re asking about your prognosis-”_

_“Yeah, I am.”_

_“-Then I suspect that you may have dissociative amnesia.” Sasha gestured for her to go on, almost blocking the carpet trail that leads all the way to the door. After all, she would have been the last client for the day. “The uncertain flashbacks, the impaired vision, and - if I’m guessing, the generally apathetic outlook points towards a dissociative case.”_

_Sasha stayed quiet._

_“Although we are not certain yet, I’d like for you to continue therapy. The condition is… let’s just say that flashbacks are symptomatic of a rooted issue. For now, what you can do is to confirm as much as you can the reality of the memories you feel like you’ve retrieved.”_

The echo of Sasha’s heels was resonant in the empty floor of the clinic’s building, she wasn’t exactly sure how to declutter an avalanche of analyses. But she’s been through this long enough to understand, not to its fullest extent, but to a slight consideration that she- didn’t have to. 

She didn’t have to if she wasn’t capable of it.

But she’ll do what she could, and maybe, there would be a chance of living. Though painfully unashamed, her fingers managed to fish her phone out of her purse and scroll back towards a buried contact number.

Becky Lynch.

It was the only way out.


	6. Tabula Rasa

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Pride Month everyone! It's a little bit ironic to be releasing a chapter with this amount implications on the month of our celebration, but nevertheless, fictions have always been avenues to speak truths about the world - one way or another; whether it's something that's hard to accept. I hope that you all could stay safe and sane and happy. 
> 
> **TRIGGER WARNING: Allusions to abuse, homophobia, and suicidal ideation**

* * *

**Chapter 6: Tabula Rasa**

_“What kind of god is it, sir, wishes wrongs to go forgotten and unpunished?”_

_“You ask it well, Master Wistan, and I know my god looks uneasily on our deeds of that day. Yet it’s long past and the bones lie sheltered beneath a pleasant green carpet. The young know nothing of them. I beg you leave this place, and let Querig do her work a while longer. Another season or two, that’s the most she’ll last. Yet even that may be long enough for old wounds to heal for ever, and an eternal peace to hold among us. Look how she clings to life, sir! Be merciful and leave this place. Leave this country to rest in forgetfulness.”_

_“Foolishness, sir. How can old wounds heal while maggots linger so richly? Or a peace hold for ever built on slaughter and a magician’s trickery?”_

* * *

Sasha woke up gasping for air. 

Her blood-polished nails gnawed rough against her scalp, almost scrapping some of its skin if she had just dug harder. If it did, she wouldn’t have guessed. She had been far too numb for a length of time that even _she_ , no matter how many times she had tried, does not even remember. 

Her fingers crooked against her hair, pulling at them like motionless weed in the palms of an idle teenager. 

It was a dream she could barely remember. There were wooden panels, canvas and paint, and knees begging and open-palmed apologies. Probably even a prayer. A slideshow of instances seen from eyes that weren’t hers. All they’ve left in her was a broken duet between a racing chest and shaking hands. She chuckled in disbelief to think that those hands actually ever touched a canvas and made something out of nothing.

But she had to _believe_ that they did. 

_Fuck._

It was 2:34 AM. She had no business being awake. 

_Fuck._

Her eyes had felt dry and sore against the blinding glare that beamed out of her phone as she unlocked it, illuminating the obscured furniture around her bedroom. Somehow, it was more intimidating to have a glimpse of what they were than to not see them at all. They stood like shadowy shapes that towered over her like jarring puzzle pieces that were never meant to comprise a whole.

 _Fuck_.

And still, Becky hasn’t replied. Two text messages sat in the sent box of Sasha’s phone in an uncomfortable succession. 

Sasha shifted in her seat, feeling bile rise from beneath a stomach that wasn’t hers, feeling sickness envelop a body that didn’t feel like it had a soul in it. Dreaming dreams, surfing through nightmares, breathing- beating pulses that were somebody else’s. 

She pulled at the fabric that clothed her, it was a red satin that reflected a silvery gleam against the cold walls of her bedroom. She pulled at her clothes until a satisfying tatter bounced off into the suffocating corners of her bed. It was a piercing interruption to the song of the blackest night. 

The steely back of the black phone shimmered against her cornea and irritating pain shot from her lids to the back of her eye - pulling the splintering mind and body to the unison of a wince. Sasha hissed. How could pain feel so liberating?

Checking her browser, she discovered a half-typed phrase in the search bar:

_Dissociative Amne_

_When did that get there?_

Sasha closed her phone instinctively, shaky hands holding each other until one of them could fall asleep. 

_What is wrong with me..._

* * *

Mornings often meant new beginnings, the renewal of vigor, and a chance to do better than yesterday. But when the faraway sun peeked from the skies and scattered its light against melting snow, it had just felt like the extension of a cycle that has stretched for centuries. 

That was every day. At least to her. After all, don’t people just live today and die tomorrow? It was the fate of humanity. She dressed to that perception, dined to that perception, and did her job as if it were true. She _existed_. To play her part and say her lines.

But today.

She skipped work today.

She wore rubber shoes and jeans, and she skipped work today. It had all felt very symbolic as she strayed off the smooth pavement and hopped against gravel to get to a direction of particularly nowhere - her feet taking her to whatever sound felt the loudest and most right. 

New York was a big city inhabited by big people and big images. 

“Miss!”

It doesn’t breathe, it doesn’t stop for anybody. _The world is big_ , she pondered, her eyes skirted past blazing billboards and clustered people and pacing legs. People sat in the steps of Time Square, hoping to kill time when it was in fact time that was killing them. It was somewhat of an irony, really.

“Miss!”

People are so small; with their sad smiles and happy tears. How can something so small contain an entire epic blazing inside of them; burning so fast, and so bright, that it didn’t almost matter if they’d eventually turn to ashes. Because _at least_ they had lived.

 _Lucky you,_ she thought. _Lucky, fucking, you._

A full mass of body raced and barrelled towards Sasha in a motion blur, as she tripped backwards and landed her back flat against concrete. Her eyes fluttered from the side of the building and what was a speeding motorcycle quickly towards the skies in an abstract of trashing hair and moving skies. Her spine felt numb for the good part of a minute as a sea of faces occupied her vision.

“Did she hit her head?” 

Past foreheads and beanies and expensive haircuts, she saw clouds; they were captivating like lullabies, they were beautiful and she wanted to be a part of them. 

“Move away!” Sasha could hear a moderately pitched voice pass through her ears like it was submerged in water, slower, muffled, and negligible. “Move away!”

Her vision of the clouds were getting smaller and smaller until the outline of a side ponytail blocked it out completely, extending a hand towards Sasha, almost grounding her back into reality. And all at once, sharp pain shot from her lower spine all the way to her legs. 

“Sasha!” Bayley called her out, searching for something in her eyes. 

As her eyes moved to its own accord the other woman sighed relief out of her chest. “Can you stand?”

* * *

_“Can you stand?”_

_Sea of faces rapidly melted into a summer of tall grass and damp soil, caramel candy dissolving into her tongue and exploding into the flavor of pollen and sunflowers. Sasha observed the sky and out of them grew shapely characters - each with their unique contours flowing slow in the direction of the waning zephyr._

_Becky was growing impatient. Her song had already been written out and guitar properly tucked in its case and Sasha had just started to plan out what she was going to paint._

_“Why? I like it here?” Sasha clutched the modestly-sized canvas that leaned towards her legs. She brushed a thin stroke of a translucent blue against clean slate._

_“I don’t know, you’re going to ruin your shirt dude. I swear!”_

_“It’s not your shirt,” Sasha shrugged casually, quickly glancing over Becky to check worry crease her face so beautifully, it was electric in the way that tension worked for her. Sasha had never seen a pout look so chiseled._

_“It’s not that.” Becky’s fists balled into knuckles, revealing what looked like dried wounds on top of her knuckles. “Your mom’s just gonna’ shoot me that look again for the next time she sees me y’know?”_

* * *

“Can you stand?”

Sasha blinked rapidly. A full minute might have passed, but she wasn’t sure with the way that Bayley’s face remained concernedly blocking her view, a hesitant twitch lingered in her eyebrows.

“Yeah,” words knocked itself out of Sasha’s lips, taking oxygen with it as it left her body. She took the hand extended towards her from Bayley as stiffness made itself known in the act of sitting up. The people had dispersed as soon as they thought she was okay. 

Bayley helped her up and sat her down to the crowded splendor of the Red Steps. Tourists flocked around it like it was a relic. And to a certain sense, it was. _What makes a relic?_ She thought. Just the collective consensus to remember something as important.

“Why aren’t you at work?” Sasha could hear the scoff in Bayley’s tone, even as she mindlessly picked at the dust that clung to her leggings. 

“I don’t know.”

Did she hear Bayley let out a dry chuckle? 

_I’m sorry_. She wanted it to roll out of her lips. But if she did, would it be sincere enough? _I’m so sorry._ Sasha used to be sure of so many things. 

A long pause sat between her and Bayley, it would have been the first time that they would interact ever since she had been driven out of the company. “Alright, I’m… I’m gonna go - you have a good day Sasha. Try to get your back checked.” Bayley picked herself up hesitantly and descended the Red Steps. 

_Wait,_ Sasha imagined herself stopping Bayley. _I’m sorry._ Maybe someday she could say it out loud.

She did see the motorcycle, she knew that Bayley had saved her. She just wasn’t sure if she had wanted Bayley to. It wasn’t like she deserved it.

Or wanted it. In the first place.

* * *

_The office resumed in its normal chatter save for the gossiping eyes of random passersby. Everyone knew what happened. And if they had seemed apathetic, it would be because they wanted to respect Bayley’s privacy._

_It had taken Sasha to become aware of a certain stare that was burning holes into the back of her head. If Bayley was mad, unuttered curses flew from the string of heavy breathing that followed the packing of potted plants and picture frames._

_“Sasha,” Bayley called her in a voice that was disappearing into thin air._

_“...Yes?”_

_A big part of Sasha didn’t want to look back._

_“You were there, weren’t you?” Bayley begged in a throaty whisper. She sounded like she had been crying for the length of time that she’s been awake. “Tell me please, that you were there and you saw him. I saw you pass by the copying room.”_

_Sasha didn’t look back. Bayley was naive. She lost her chance the minute that she had started to walk towards the human resource department._

_“I’m sorry…” She replied. “I didn’t see anything.”_

* * *

Wine was all she had, when everything went to hell. It started out as cheap college box wines, which graduated into expensive 1970-something bottles of Shiraz to the occasional luxury brands in extravagant parties that only Wall Street can afford. It was a celebratory drink after demanding accounting tests. Not soon after, wine was all she had, even in purgatory; where she would find the tannin of wine run down her throat whether it’s for an aced exam or a failed seatwork. 

It was because of _wine_ that she had forgotten about prayers.

And somehow, some part of her was thankful. She was a brittle like glass but the wine had filled her up. With the smoke of its mist rather than nothing. It wasn’t soon after that she no longer felt like she was falling. It was better, and then it became frequent, and then the only thing she was falling towards was not a rabbit hole but a routine.

The wine’s spirit had suspended her to perpetually live her life floating, wedged in a confusion between elation and sobriety. Ever since then she had permanently felt untethered.

So Sasha wasn’t surprised at all when she found her fingers wrapped around a wide glass of wine. But it was far too early into the evening, and the bartenders had to shift at that point. When the bartender with a close-cropped hair hung his apron and the color of a certain kind never crossed her vision, Sasha found herself walking around the room, searching for the unique contrast of burning hair against the dullness of an unsaturated crowd. 

Every fire had a smoke. Becky stood outside of the penthouse bar, mist leaking out of her teeth like the windows of a house that is on fire, ready to wash the ashes off its boots. 

A silent greeting fell from her lips as sneakers scraped against rough flooring. It wasn’t a restricted location of the bar but there was a reason that it was empty. The wide balcony wherein Becky stood was rusting railings and shifting stars, it was close to one of the pipes that it somewhat reeked of leftovers and the dishwasher. And even then, the scent of toasted almonds rebelled from the cinder of her cigar. 

“Hello,” Becky greeted her in a voiceless whisper. It wasn’t much of anything but a disappearing rasp in the middle of a busy evening. She eyed her from top to bottom, taking the new height-dynamic between the two of them when Sasha wasn’t wearing heels. “To what do I owe you this visit?”

Sasha took in her surroundings. The stars were shifting from above them, covering its heart like an ocean. “Becky,” the name rolled out of her tongue so strangely and distantly familiar. She walked towards Becky with a hesitant pace, stopping at every step, ready to throw whatever it is that was closest to an apology. 

Becky nodded at her, the semblance of acceptance crossed her face, evident in the smile that twinkled in hooded eyes. 

“I’m sorry,” Sasha said and Becky waited. “I saw you the other week and I didn’t know what to do.”

Becky looked like she was about to say, _I don’t know what you’re talking about_ , but instead avoided Sasha’s gaze.

“It was nothing.” Becky lied through her teeth. “I probably mistook you for one of my exes.” She continued, “I should be the one who’s sorry. So what are you doing here? Not exactly the kind of spot for someone who orders a 1987-”

“Becky,” Sasha halted her. “I _know_ you.”

Maybe it was something within her tone, maybe in the length of a four-lettered word, or in the gravelly sadness behind it. But when the words ‘know’ rang in the wind, Becky crossed her arms like she instantly knew what Sasha was talking about. If it was an attempt to brace herself, Sasha wasn’t sure.

“But I don’t remember you.”

Becky looked at her with deep pain. _It’s okay,_ she almost said, or at least, she looked like she would say it. _Everyone forgets._ Becky’s jaws clenched like an apology to herself. _That’s how the world works..._

“At least, not all of you.”

* * *

A differing silence lingered between them as they squatted in the dirty surface of the balcony. Sasha had mentioned the possibility of having a form of amnesia, but Sasha was sure of it. The word ‘possibility’ was only medical hedging. In turn, Becky didn’t know how to respond. She opened her mouth in a toiling attempt at words but only her throat only vibrated with uncertainty.

Finally, Becky was able to muster words. “What do you remember?”

“What were we, Becky?”

The other woman sighed. Maybe it was for both of them.

“We were a lot of things,” Becky began. “A lot of things we eventually didn’t become.”

“What do you mean?”

Becky scoffed, she carefully picked at her leather jacket’s zipper like old wounds. “You were a painter and I wrote everything. We were friends, and then more than that. And then you left and came back like torment. But most of all we were kids and we were stupid.” 

“...Came back?” Sasha remembered leaving, at least it was on the edge of her dreams that she could remember. She was thinking that maybe they left for Boston on that day, where sunshine was punishing instead of rejuvenating. Punishing - because Sasha could almost tell that she was praying the night before; for that next morning to never come. “Where did I go?”

“I asked myself the same question.”

* * *

_“Has this ever happened in your life? Have you ever experienced, or witnessed, or been confronted with traumatic events?” The therapist asked in a clinically monotonous voice, looking at long paper with a far-sighted stare._

_“I don’t think there’s anything much to say, it was a campus fire - we were sent home, I didn’t get to see it.”_

* * *

_The sunny afternoon selectively glistened in the broad strokes of oil paint that was left to dry in an unfinished canvas. Sasha had been staring at the painting for a stretch of time that she wasn’t aware of, lost in the tendrils of a woman’s hair._

_“What are you painting?” The facilitator clinically asked. Sasha could hear ice wedged in the facilitator’s throat, and suddenly her heart ran a thousand miles per second. “Is that a girl?”_

_“It’s Mother Mary,” she lied, because she wasn’t sick like they told her just a few days ago, on her first day._

_“Mother Mary doesn’t have red hair.” The facilitator was calm but Sasha knew that every word that came out of her tongue was biting, weighing like punishments being collected into debts that she would later repay._

_The first atonement was easy, she had to whisper and confess, with eyes open so she knows that everyone could see her. Everyone was bare in front of God, and she was no exception._

* * *

It was a dream she could barely remember. There were wooden panels, canvas and paint, and knees begging and open-palmed apologies. Probably even a prayer. A slideshow of instances seen from eyes that weren’t hers. All they’ve left in her was a broken duet between a racing chest and shaking hands. She chuckled in disbelief to think that those hands actually ever touched a canvas and made something out of nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *sigh* That was pretty heavy for me as well


	7. The Word of Your Body

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Trigger Warning: Allusions to religious abuse and homophobia**

* * *

**Chapter 7: The Word of Your Body**

_“But God will know the slow tread of an old couple’s love for each other, and understand how black shadows make part of its whole.”_

* * *

Broken shards of beer bottles dug into the earthy backyard of Asuka’s rustic, unconventional mansion. It was alternatively elegant, vines holding and climbing onto brick walls as light passed through their branches, greedily taking for themselves what was supposed to be for the house. It was almost no wonder that it was unbelievably dark in that mansion if it weren’t for artificial light. For children, the wide branches that covered the moon was the silhouette of fear; for teenagers? Opportunity. 

Emerald and sapphire laser lights beamed from all the noisy corners of the mansion, piercing through thick fog and the thicker scent of sweat and vomit. It had almost been exciting at first, until body after body couldn’t give Becky the right vibe or conversation that she was just looking for. It’s not that they didn’t respond interestingly, it was just maybe _interesting_ wasn’t inherent to them. They weren’t muses, and Becky wasn’t exactly looking for one.

In fact, it had all looked cheap. Ridiculous faces and ridiculous grooves, dancing to ridiculous music. The insanity of unrelenting teenage spirit was carefully contained behind closed windows and soundproof walls. It protected their feeble artistic ‘exploration’ from the cops, from their parents, but most of all, from the peering eyes of cooler people in their age bracket. But anything that was locked was suffocating.

A barren chuckle left Becky’s lips as she exhaled herself out of the mansion and onto the porch. She sat in the middle of the wooden steps unsure of what to do with herself, her feet unsure of what to do with its own existence as it furiously tapped against the hollow surface. The Art Collective was wonderful. But parties? It just really wasn’t their thing.

Or maybe the collective just shone a little less bright without the color of a certain hair. 

Sasha didn’t make any promises to come, and seeing that the moon had already eclipsed most of the evening sky, it didn’t look like the _maybe_ would sharpen into a _yes_. But just in case, Becky told her that she would be there, because it would have been Sasha’s first ‘gathering’. It was totally harmless. 

A friend helping a friend. 

The hands of her watch ticked to the alarm of the seventh hour, she had been there since the afternoon. _One more,_ she thought to herself. _It’s not too late and she might find herself alone_.

Becky was being a good friend, she was just being a good friend.

Sasha eventually arrived at the mansion, five minutes before Becky would once again convince herself to stay for another five minutes. A thinly veiled sourness lived in her furrowed brows as she dusted her already perfectly pressed clothes, as if it could never be too clean. She stopped in front of a car to communicate with the darkened face of her father, obscured by the dead of night, shying away from the limited radiance of street lamps. 

There were meek nods and a mother with a stiff upper lip as they sent her off with a string of warnings. Sasha looked as if tension hugged her body and made a quivering mess out of such a smooth-edged face. 

But their eyes locked and so did the direction of their feet, and in that instant, the air swelled with greetings. Careful footsteps approached Becky with a confident hug. It could have been because Sasha was nearing the entrance, or that her parents are driving further away. 

“Hey,” Sasha breathed and fingertip shyly tucked stray hair away from her own face and into the back of her ear where it fell tiredly. “I hope you weren’t about to leave?” 

“No!” Becky pulled away from the hug, a bead of sweat trickled from her temple, anxiety evaporating out of her skin when a breeze blew past them. “I actually just got here, don’t worry about it.”

Hands over her chest in a relieved sigh, Sasha flashed a smile towards Becky. “Oh thank God.”

Sasha smiled at her and its warmth became worth all the wait and lousy conversations. Becky smiled back, because, how else does one respond when beauty was staring them right in the face.

“What’s everyone doing?”

“Getting shitfaced on orange juice and a drop of liquor,” Becky smugged. 

A frown and squinted eyes responded to Becky and then modest shoes walked past her to fumble around the golden doorknob that separated the quiet of night from buzzing teenage spirit. 

“You ready?” Becky followed her.

“I just want to see her dad’s collection.”

Every adult had their version of philanthropy, which just often meant a piece of their youth that they elegantly clung onto. They were the successful ones, the lucky ones, the ones that hung onto Babylon as it crumbled - holding bricks in their palms to remember pieces of the times gone by. Asuka’s father, grandfather, her family, luckily had a slice of that in their audiovisual room. 

Becky locked the room as cheap music slowly dwindled into muffled noise.

“It’s beautiful…” Sasha trailed off and walked in a trance, transported into a completely different world, into a dialogue between her and the life-sized paintings. Her hands hovered a few inches close to the paintings. She didn’t touch it, but it seemed as if she flirted with the idea. “It reads out like history.”

Becky could only see the colors and the message that was locked within the frame, but Sasha saw past that. She wanted to see what Sasha saw as the other woman’s eyes skirted across the neatly ordered paintings and saw a story in the blank spaces of the wall that separated ornate frames. She wanted to see their poetry but the only song in the room was Sasha’s flickering eyes.

 _What do you see, Sasha?_ Becky wondered, and she thought that, it might have been at that second that she had started to fall for her _friend_. _What’s in a picture?_

At the end of the trail was an old ceramic saké. A full century of struggle fermented into a singular finish. 

“What’s it like, Becky?” Sasha cut through the thick observant silence. 

Becky hummed a question. “Hmm?” 

“A lot of people drink to forget but this… Asuka’s family drank to remember.” Her eyes darted from the saké to Becky and back to the glass casing of the saké. “I’m wondering what’s it like? Do you think different? Feel different?”

“I can’t tell you that,” Becky rasped and paced casually. “The chemical reaction is almost similar for most people, but… the soul, they all react differently. For me? Drunk is an ocean, shallow and deep, and then all at once. It saves and it drowns. You know how, water contains oxygen but at the same time it can suffocate.”

“The ocean…” Sasha curiously licked her lips. “They’re for people who want to lose themselves.”

“It’s definitely an experience.”

* * *

_“Perhaps, it was my fault.” Becky narrated. “I sold you ideas and I can understand how overwhelming and deceptively attractive they could have been.”_

_Sasha's lashes fluttered in absorption. "It couldn't have been. Everyone is responsible for their own decisions."_

_"You don't understand," Becky grimly shook her head as a wave of cold sent visible tremors to her fingertips. "You came home drunk that night, and nothing has been the same ever since."_

* * *

The three days that followed that weekend passed in an agonizingly slow pace with no Sasha in sight. It was only the heavy descent of her boots hitting a brittle floor that reminded Becky that she was walking instead of gliding. The cafeteria was colorless and full, faces abound that she had one talked to, conversed with, and maybe even sat with. And they didn’t acknowledge her, and she looked at them with an equally apathetic reciprocity. 

That was the point at which Becky Lynch realized how much of the world had been affected by Sasha. In the broad strokes of the woman’s paintbrush that portrayed an intimate depiction of beautiful skies, Becky had realized that she too, was being colored into the orbit. 

But who was she kidding?

She knew that. Especially when she let herself cling onto the actions slipping out of a drunken stupor. She laughed at the romantic danger of it all, when you’re a person who can think so deeply. The slightest touch felt like electricity and Sasha’s head that lazily draped against her shoulders were warmth incarnate. But she was old enough. Old enough to know that it wasn’t something just because she somewhat wanted it to be. 

But _damn_ , can’t Sasha just sweep in and disprove her? 

Can’t she just come to school already? 

Becky was waiting and the hours couldn’t spin any faster. The hours couldn’t spin any faster but they eventually came. She was unprepared for it.

On the day that Sasha returned to school, Becky was late for the club meeting, somewhat lost in the steps of the school’s bleachers, watching the hours tick by as seconds and days folded into one - simultaneously happening before her eyes in the image of athletes training and birds hunting food.

Her boots were damp from the dewey grass when she entered the club. Sasha was painting like she was lost in the varying shades of black before her eyes. Becky couldn’t tell what it was, a black hole or the galaxy - but they both looked like a tantalizing abyss. Black was the absence of color that Sasha had ever so sparingly used, it wasn’t found in most of her frames, not in her things, and not even in her painted locks. 

“Sasha.” Becky’s fingers ghosted above Sasha’s shoulders as she spoke her whispery greeting. The other woman didn’t look back, but the hint of a sigh told Becky that she was heard somehow. “Sasha?”

“I’m sorry.” Her voice was barely above a whisper, because maybe it was said to herself more than to anyone else in the room. Sasha’s head fell below her shoulders and it almost looked like a controlled sob. 

Becky couldn’t touch her. It felt wrong. So she just watched tired legs fidget pathetically and unrhythmically, the action looked almost involuntary. Anxiety was trapped beneath her thigh-length socks. And that’s when Becky noticed them roll below her knees in a volley of sudden, rapid movements.

She wished that she didn’t see what she saw when Sasha’s legs just comprised a parcel of her version, but all she saw were fresh purple bruises. The split second before panic overtook her bones Becky had wondered if they had been from when Sasha fell out of heaven, because even in transparent tears, she looked so beautiful.

“Sasha… what’s that on your leg?”

But heaven didn’t exist past the mind of angels that walk the earth, Becky knew that. God never existed. Not when she was born and never knew her mother, not in the dinner table where her grandma whispered sweet nothings that never flew past the crust of their ceiling, and certainly not now, when the fantastic girl who believed in such fantastic creatures scurried away from her and towards the bathroom - teardrops trailing after her like debris out of an old and crumbling church. 

Of course, Becky was quick to follow, barrelling past students, uncaring of books and lunch boxes that were knocked out on the way to the bathroom. And when she arrived at a despairing Sasha, she shut and locked the door tight behind them. 

“What was that?” She approached her carefully.

“It’s nothing.”

Sasha’s voice was small. Why was it so small? 

“Don’t lie to me.” 

Sasha’s knees quivered, quickly dropping painfully hard against cold tiles. She flinched but it looked like it didn’t even matter. 

“It hurts, Becky.” Sasha croaked like, it had been a mere wisp of sound. Becky lowered herself next to Sasha, only ever staring at her to seek any sort of permission. Sasha leveraged Becky’s shoulder to reposition her unnaturally seated legs. The touch burned of implications. Her fingertips were so cold against Becky’s bare skin. 

“You have to tell me what happened.” She needed Sasha to respond, the girl looked like she was fading. “Sasha, can you hear me?”

“-Yeah,” Sasha muttered out in between a chain of hesitant breathing. “It-, It’s nothing really. I just, I know what I did that night and it was _so wrong_. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

Becky hesitantly placed a palm behind Sasha’s back and the other girl leaned in with permission. “Is this about last Saturday?”

“I don’t know what I was thinking, I knew it was wrong so I deserved that and I kept praying. I mean I had to.” Sasha stammered through words like a reckless bullet train. “I prayed and kneeled for hours and days Becky and I know I should have been forgiven but-”

“Sash...” _You don’t have to punish yourself, he doesn’t exist_. Becky was going to say a lot of things, but Sasha’s eyes swelled with ugly anguish, suspended on top of her lids by heart-wrenching reluctance.

She looked like she was about to explode; teeth clamped and fists balled, short animalistic whimpers escaping her lips whenever her eyes were closed and weren’t looking. Sasha heaved, and then came the uncontrollable cascade of tears. “My knees just hurt so bad.” Her voice broke. 

She kept wiping her cheeks and they wouldn’t stop.

_Don’t do this to yourself._

“Sash.”

_You don’t have to if you don’t want to._

Becky softened and scooted closer to Sasha. “Sash…” It felt right, at that point, when she held Sasha in her arms, as the other girl limped right into her touch, face buried deep into the curve of Becky’s neck. “You’re going to be fine…” Becky absentmindedly ran her hands through Sasha’s hair, her fingers familiarizing themselves with the tangles that comprised the complicated waves in her hair.

It felt like it had gone on for hours. None of them really knew how much time had passed in between dissolving hiccups and gentle strokes.

Eventually, Sasha disentangled herself from Becky’s embrace. She whispered an incredibly quiet thanks. 

“Sasha, look at me.” A finger curled to raise Sasha’s downcast chin. “Look at me."

Eyes rolled up to stare directly at Becky, boring symphony out of its glassy appearance. "It hurts."

"It doesn't have to.” Becky held Sasha’s shoulders with straight-armed compellence, searching and meeting Sasha’s eyes for every time it would flutter away from her. “It doesn’t have to if you don’t want to.”

“I can’t do that.”

 _Fuck_. A teary-eyed, sardonic chuckle escaped Becky’s lips. “What kind?”

_Believe me Sasha._

“What kind of god do you worship, such that he just lets you live a life of guilt and suffering?”

* * *

_“I…” Sasha stammered, searching for memories in the arc of Becky’s frown. The woman in front of her narrated with such hesitance, it almost felt criminal to compel from her a retelling. But Sasha knew that she was selfish. She’s been selfish since she has known herself._

_It was a little ironic, because she didn’t know herself, she didn’t know. Was it so selfish to want to know about the time that you weren’t? “I remember things so differently.”_

_Sasha saw Becky open her mouth to utter absolutely nothing, she seemed lost in the canvas of a time that’s long been buried. She wanted to apologize. For opening pandora’s box and unearthing ghouls whose names she didn’t know, those that only lived in Becky’s mind and memory._

_But it would have been useless._

_They were in Sasha’s living room. The cocktails have been fixed, the stage set, and there was no turning back because the descent had already begun._

_“I just… I remember everything as normally traditional. As if doubts had always existed in me but I just never confronted it. In my mind, I’ve never confronted it.”_

_“Oh you have,” Becky stared past her with elevated brows, inattentively mixing the martini into an elegant whirlpool. She didn’t even have to try. “You have.”_

* * *

That day, missionaries arrived at their school’s assembly, speaking their version of truths into existence. They had warned everyone against the perils of adolescence, the devil manifesting itself in the desires that grew from their brittle bones and fragile spirits. 

“Just don’t do it, not only are you risking your health but you’d also be gambling your soul away. That, my friends, is death.”

It seemed as if the echo of those words lingered within Sasha’s head because she had been silent for the rest of the day. Sasha had often recited, chattered with teachers, or scribbled lectures in varying highlighters. Today, Becky noticed that the girl had grown particularly fond of what was a thousand yards beyond the window.

Club hours had arrived and it was routine for them to meet prior to the chaos that would ensue around multiple up-and-coming nobodies who had joined the club with them.

Once they had neared the door, Sasha pulled Becky away. “Let’s skip.”

The school had a wide lot, hidden corners and miniature forests existed like an oasis within a desert of prohibitions. They stopped by an old infrastructure that's only ever been frequented by maintenance, resting their pressed clothes flat against dusty surfaces.

“I don’t get that guy,” Becky complained. “What kinda’ fuckery is there to guilting kids for tendencies that come naturally to them? Philip looked so scared dude. Heck, if that god is as kind and generous as they say he is, he wouldn’tve created people with these desires, don’t you think?”

Sasha was silent, only staring at the imperfect edges of the abandoned classroom in front of them.

Becky bit her lips, and quickly realized the kind of life that Sasha had lived. She hadn’t talked about religion for a while, and Becky was young, easy to skirt past those little nuances. “I’m sorry.” 

Their first kiss came out of the blue, a swift motion of lips crashing soft against Becky’s. Sasha felt young and immature against her lips, unsure of where to place themselves flat. She pulled away with parted lips and Becky felt the ghost of Sasha’s lips linger as she touched her own. 

Her eyes darkened like the early evening sky, awakening moonlit desires that bubbled at the back of her mind. She didn’t know that she had always wanted this moment as it stood before her with open hands.

No one was exactly sure how any of them got to the point at which Sasha’s paper white blouse was pressed harshly against the rough wall beside them, just that it was Becky’s strong grip that kept her there. 

There were no words that were uttered, just hungry mouths and an awakening inside of them. Whatever the feeling was, it felt like they were burning to a hot fever as Becky coaxed Sasha’s mouth to part before her - allowing for a kiss so deep and prolonged that they found it troubling to even breathe. They found it troubling to even breathe and it had held on for a time that Becky felt like she could die. 

How can you want to die in the arms of someone that made you so, goddamn, alive?

Sasha eventually rebelled against her, resisting the consuming nature of her fire - fist full of Becky’s collar as she led them both to her pace.

After that day, nothing was ever the same.

* * *

_“That was all I’ve ever wanted. But now that I think about it… now I’m not so sure if you loved me or you used me.”_

_Becky’s voice pierced above the web of memories that began to knit themselves into existence within the back of Sasha’s mind. It should have burned of pictures but a swelling and unwinding sense of grim settled at the pit of her stomach._

_All of a sudden, she could recognize Becky’s face. Its lines, its youth, and how it has aged._

_The twitch of her lips that was so familiar._

_“I remember you…” Sasha swallowed the growing lump in her throat, feeling so much, and knowing so little of the questions that were tangled within her head. She got up from where she sat, slowly approaching Becky - every step a realization, and a leap towards a whirlpool of the past._

_“I loved you.”_

_“Don’t.” Becky flinched, refusing to look at Sasha. “Don’t do that.”_

_“...What do you mean?”_

_“Please.” She breathed deeply. “Don’t.”_

* * *

The season flew by in the steps of their secret routine, youth evident in the lowly whispers of dreams and nothing. Gradually, Sasha had stopped praying to her god and started to worship the winds of fate that brought them together - it was never mentioned, but it had lived in the strokes of Sasha’s brush.

They were young, they were so very young. Foolish to have thought that secrets could last forever, as they pushed against time and law and its boundaries through a trail of kisses in hidden places. Becky had never realized it but what was casually love for her was the forbidden fruit to Sasha.

On a particularly sloppy evening, Sasha’s father caught the beautiful remnants of purple kisses on Sasha’s neck, the happy bruises from Becky’s touch. They were young, they were so very young, and they had underestimated how cruel adults could get.

Their family left town the next day.

She never knew what happened to Sasha for an entire month until she had to come back a completely different person. Sasha had promised that she would come back in the covert whispers of the letter that she had someone send before they had left. 

She never promised this.

“Sasha!” Becky’s lungs couldn’t catch up to her spirit as her legs almost gave out trying to chase a girl that walked from faraway. “Sasha!”

Sasha turned towards her, with dead familiarity in the winter of her eyes. “Can I help you?”

“Do you… perhaps, want to visit the back of the gymnasium again sometimes?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Fuck,” Becky muttered, almost feeling embarrassingly out of context. “Do you want to hang out?”

“I’m getting picked up early?” Sasha politely said. In fact, she had said it _too_ politely - the way any trained child would refuse a stranger. “I can’t, I’m sorry.”

Days faded into weeks, culminating into a month when Sasha’s family left town for good. Becky wasn’t entirely sure if it was more relieving that she would no longer see the ghost of Sasha anymore.

But damn, does it hurt.

* * *

_"Where did you go, Sasha? Where did you go?"_

_"...I don't remember."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> phew... ya'll ready for the next one? almost there familia~


	8. Code of Silence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **TRIGGER WARNING: Allusions to sexual assault, religious abuse, and homophobia**
> 
> What's about to be shown in this chapter may be triggering to certain individuals that suffer from the aforementioned allusions and more. I'd advise against reading further if you feel like these could be a trigger for you. Otherwise, please do enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter 8: Code of Silence**

_“Yet are you so certain, good mistress, you wish to be free of this mist? Is it not better some things remain hidden from our minds?"_

_"It may be for some, father, but not for us. Axl and I wish to have again the happy moments we shared together. To be robbed of them is as if a thief came in the night and took what's most precious from us."_

_"Yet the mist covers all memories, the bad as well as the good. Isn't that so, mistress?"_

_"We'll have the bad ones come back too, even if they make us weep or shake with anger. For isn't it the life we've shared?”_

* * *

_Her anticipative smile put all the stars to death as cynicism faded away from her eyes and for an entire moment when her eyes flickered pale flame towards Sasha, she looked like she believed._

_“Are you sure you want to do this?” The permission had felt like a mere formality. Because Sasha was aching for Becky, and it couldn’t have been more evident in the gasps that lifted out of her lips when Becky’s lazily dropped wet kisses against her stomach, knees digging deep against the soft mattress, fluidly bowing to the heat of their movements._

_“Sasha?” Becky repeated as she continued to torturously restrain herself to previously charted regions of Sasha’s body, fingertips running across the smooth curves of Sasha’s waist._

_“-Ah… yes.”_

_She did not want to think about it, the lights on Becky’s ceiling were dizzying enough. Becky induced enough haze in her eyes and heat at the pit of her stomach to want to think about repercussions._

_“You sure?” Becky inaudibly groaned as she lifted herself up to firmly cup the area just below her breasts and stare her up with those lazy, clouded eyes._

Just fuck me. _Sasha thought, before vulgarities died at the point at which they arrived in her mind, its residue being her tongue sinfully licking her lower lip._ I don’t even want to think about it _. Becky was reckless abandon. Her, Reckless Abandon. “Mhm…”_

_If Becky was a weapon that Sasha used against herself, she wasn’t sure. Whatever they were, she wasn’t sure. If she was completely lucid to comprehend the guilty fire that ran in her veins for every time Becky would kiss a little bit lower, she wasn’t sure. But she felt good. Uncontrollable. Infinitely in the moment._

_So it didn’t matter. In fact, nothing mattered when Becky started to peel her shirt over her head. Wind blew coolly against the sheen of sweat that glazed her exposed chest as Becky dipped her mouth to capture one of them._

_“Fuck,” Sasha moaned, her voice disappeared into the noise of Becky’s conquest - which came into an abrupt halt._

_“Wait what?” Becky stopped while hoisted on top of Sasha, both legs already anchored to the bed. “Are you okay?”_

_“Huh? Yeah.”_

_Disbelief sobered Becky’s squinted eyes. “...I’m sorry, that was the first time I’ve heard you curse is all.” She hesitantly went back to the duties of her hands with a bothered pace, ultimately stopping after a few seconds. “Actually…”_

_Sasha looked at her confused. The sun’s glare sharpened the color of Becky’s hair as it draped messily over her own shoulders, some of its length sticking in Sasha’s skin. “What?”_

_“Not like this.”_

_“Not like what?”_

_“This!” Becky snapped, posturing herself away from Sasha, covering Sasha with the discarded blanket that pooled at the foot of her bed. She vigorously shook her head, criminally guilty hands wrapped on her forehead. “You don’t deserve this. It’s… Sasha it’s your first time and it can’t be here in my room, heat of the moment, unprepared and almost meaningless. You deserve… dinners, candle-lit, and the scent of vanilla.”_

_“Becky,” Sasha shyly sat up. “We’re sixteen. You can’t afford a five-star. Don’t be dramatic.”_

_“You know what I meant.”_

_She did. She knew full well, and she was damned. It might have been the day that Sasha had started to fall for Becky,_ really, _fall for Becky._

* * *

Becky had aged before her eyes, carrying an entire decade in the creases of her forehead and her chiseled jaws. She wasn’t sure if the lines carved themselves happily or if it had all come from grief. There was eleven years ago, and then there was now, and an entire middle that passed from between them. So much has slipped away from them in the breeze of one fall.

And maybe, just maybe, that was why unconscious resentment had always scratched her throat rough and colored her heart empty for whenever and whatever situation involved her parents. It was their fault. Maybe, that too, was why she had actively avoided churches for as soon as emancipation drew closer. 

They took that decade away from her when she could have been another person - something, more. Not the ghost that dated a faceless random for every three months, expecting to find feelings in the same place that she lost it - which was within her parents’ shadow. 

Her stomach stirred with ashes and fire, unsure of what to feel, but sure that it wants to burst even in its hunger. She couldn’t think, but feel everything all at once. Love and resentment coexisting like warring friends, the moon and the sun, perpetually chasing each other out of their seat in the universe.

All she wanted to do, at that moment, was to selfishly remember; to reside in the bones of decaying memories, in the debris of old ruins - pretending that it was still the mansion she once knew. She didn’t see it crumble. Right?

 _Come hide with me in this memory._

_For when we were young and happy._

“Becky…” Sasha looked at her, young and current, the past and the present, melting into the sunset in her face. “What happened to us?” 

Becky let out an uncomfortable, long, and humorless chuckle. “Wish I knew.” She sucked in all the air in the room. Perhaps it would pull back the invisible tears that did not wet her cheeks. It was, after all, a dry memory. “Let me know when you find out.”

The other woman set the empty glass of martini down as she slowly walked towards the door, drawing panic in Sasha’s eyes.

“Becky?”

Her hands were already at the doorknob before when she spun to face Sasha, fighting the misery that forced her lips to involuntarily curve downwards. “I thought… I really thought I could do this, and I _tried_ my best, okay? I want to help you _Sash_ but I can’t - for the life of me - undo all that I’ve worked to get past in one sitting.”

“Have a good life, Sasha.”

Sasha heard what Becky tried to say.

_This time, I choose me._

So, hard as it is, she wasn’t going to stop her.

They were both old enough to reckon that all that’s passed is in the past, and they’re past the point of return.

But _goddamn_ , does she remember.

* * *

‘ _Becky, I know that I’ve done you wrong.’_

Out of impulse, Sasha had delivered a canvas and a set of brushes, alongside a kaleidoscopic batch of colors that played a childlike tune against the monochromatic furnishing of her flat. They had been the only colors saved from the barely-stocked fruit basket by her counter. It looked sad, two days past its peak ripeness, but maybe she was going to try to paint a banana.

How else does she let time traverse over her memories unconsciously without having to steal quick glances to a smartphone that was barren of any replies that remotely mattered?

‘ _I can’t… I don’t even know what to apologize for.’_

She set the canvas against her couch and sat on the floor, amateurly piercing expensive paint and pouring it towards a confused mixture. Sasha felt like a stranger to the sight and to her own body, but she pressed on, somewhat believing that if her mind had remembered- her hands would follow suit. Maybe they would remember that they were made for something other than signing papers and feeling out a palpitating wrist.

_‘Can we at least be friends?’_

After profusely sweating as she toiled through complicated curves and colors, Sasha sat up to observe what she had created. The image was nothing short of the word ugly and almost childish in its nature, it was the work of someone who has never touched paint. 

_‘Look… I know it hurts. And I’m trying to remember. I remember that we left for Boston, but there’s nothing else in here.’_

It wasn’t a major feeling, but frustration snuck-up at the back of her mind like the tip of an iceberg. Sasha would have completely thrown the canvas if it fit in the trash can, and her hands felt too limp to break it. She wasn’t bothered, she just wanted to rip it apart. 

What’s in a painting? Surely, an entire decade of not being able to paint, forgetting, living like a ghost. Sasha stared at it for a stretch of minutes that no one could have counted. Eventually her phone chimed a hopeful ring that broke her trance. 

_‘Hey Sasha… It’s Bayley, it’s my new number. Is this still yours?’_

_Bayley?_ She had completely forgotten about Bayley. 

_‘Yeah, it is. What can I do for you?’_

_‘I was hoping that we could meet, in person?’_

She could use the distraction, the strangely shaded doodle in front of her had started to look like Becky’s skin. 

_‘Yeah, sure.’_

* * *

They met up in a covert cafe, under the night sky, when the moon was dressed as saturn in its dust-covered disguise. By the window, at their corner spot, that was all that Sasha could see when Bayley opened up. She could wander across space, transfixed in its infinite, where nothing mattered and nothing ever will.

She pulled herself back from the fantasy when her vision chanced the dusk in Bayley’s eyes. Because again, like before and always, she was starting to float. And she was done floating.

_No._

_Not again. Not like this._

But it felt so instinctual that she had to physically hold her ears open so that her mind could listen to the beat of Bayley’s words. Until it wasn’t the sound of water and stereo that was coming out of her mouth for every time she would open it. A lot of kids had dreamt for the rest of natural born days to live out like a fairytale. _Goddamn_ them, thinking that it would be so normal that they would find horns in horses instead of people; that the air was a river instead of oxygen - bewildering and hollow all at once.

“I guess what I’m trying to say is that… I want to forgive you and I want to move on and I can’t do that without forgiving you.”

_Not again, not like this._

_This, I’ll face._

The noon was dark but her coffee bounced off silver light, and in this lining Sasha found her response. In the slight quiver of her legs was confusion, but in her lips was, “I’m sorry.”

“I guess…” Bayley’s eyes slid to the shadow that enveloped the folds of her jeans, in her downcast gaze did quiet courage travel to her mouth. “I guess I want to know why.” 

_Why?_ People seem to have been asking her that question a lot recently. She even found the same question in the depth of her sleep. 

“I… need to know why you didn’t defend me. _You knew_ Sasha.”

Bayley was right. _God,_ she was right. But Sasha couldn’t reprimand the body that moved like it wasn’t hers or the mind that ran to its own accord - skittering towards the skies in its eagle-eyed vision where everybody was small and only the trees were tall and only the clouds had color. She _knew_ that everyone should have been responsible for each other. Especially in an industry where only the fewest of the strong can make it.

But she didn’t. Moral responsibilities didn’t exist to the dead who walk the earth.

And still, she asked herself, _why?_

“I… want to say that,” Sasha took her time, finding rationale in the guilt that stared right back. Scouring for the closest answer that she could find in the bottom of the ocean where nothing was ever truly right. “I wanted to protect my job, maybe. I _think_ that… at the time, maybe, there wasn’t enough evidence and they were definitely protected.” _Please. Let that be genuine._

Bayley froze like a statue. “...Enough evidence? Sasha you were _there_.”

* * *

_Everything in the office was a bit of a darker grey after the official hours had passed, but she was no stranger to the orchestra of elevator buttons and fax machines. It was a-_

Tuesday? Wednesday?

_Regular weekday, a stack of paper of phone calls; a dayful of plastered smiles and high heels. At the hour, no sound was stranger to her - the stirring coffee machine, the half-lit floors, the drone of the air conditioner, and the mop of janitors who haven’t been hit by contractual cycles just yet._

_Except for the shifting of weight in the copy room._

_That. Sound. And muffled noises that argued red with resistance. Two shadowy figures. There was something in the copy room, and it was a month later when Bayley spoke out that Sasha had her suspicions confirmed._

_But she walked away, and walked fast for that evening._

* * *

“No…” Bayley shook her head, and her jaws shifted with a quiet rage. “We _locked eyes_ Sasha, you peeked at the copy room.”

Did she?

“You saw me!” 

Did she? 

Bayley’s mouth had opened but it didn’t at all seem like the angry voice that infiltrated Sasha’s ears all towards her gut belonged to Bayley. It rang of blame to a person she was sure was her but didn’t at all feel like it. 

In that instant, she could feel her consciousness split into three; simultaneously living and not living in two pasts and one present. Voices and horrors surfacing from the back of her head, taking away the life that’s left in her eyes - because none of them made any kind of sense.

* * *

_“What are you painting?”_

_“It’s Holy Mary.”_

_“Holy Mary doesn’t have red hair.”_

* * *

“For such a long time Sasha I’ve tried to make peace with the idea that you didn’t save me, and even stand up for me - but I need to hear you own up to it, okay?” Bayley was breathing but she looked like she wasn’t forming words. Her voice dulled to a slow and stifled pace, as a radio dropped in the middle of the sea.

* * *

_“Sasha?”_

_“Dad?”_

_“We need to talk. I was told about your… friendship with Rebecca.”_

* * *

Her hands were shaking, and she didn’t know when they had started to shake and when her vision had started to blur, and when her heart had started to furiously palpitate. 

“...Sasha?” Bayley’s brows shifted to a curve with concern settled deep. “Are you okay?”

She shot Bayley an empty, wide-eyed look. Shattered memories playing out from behind her eyes like an old movie, and from right inside her, she had sat behind her own silver screen eyes in tears. 

Her mouth started to move very slowly. “Bayley I’m so sorry.”

“I’m so very _fucking_ sorry.”

* * *

_Their eyes locked, for what seemed like an eternity and it had been unbeknownst to the man with his back turned against the door._

_Bayley had mouthed, ‘help’, and it never came. Not in the form of Sasha who stayed there frozen, events unfolding before her vacant eyes in contrast to Bayley’s that swelled with anguish._

_They weren’t the closest, in fact they couldn’t call themselves much of friends but any human being would have done something._

_Right?_

_But Sasha walked away to the sound of blood-curdling screams. She hoped that someone would come when all she could do was look-_

_And forget._

* * *

The screams were vivid in her mind’s terrifying cinema.

_I’m so sorry._

_I’m so very fucking sorry._

She looked at her fists that had impossibly paled under dusk and she was so sure that they were dry but they still felt like there was blood crusting on top of her knuckles. They felt sore and her knees felt like they have been kneeling for decades. 

“Sasha? You’re crying. Sasha, are you okay?”

Her feet took her elsewhere and away from the cafe and she wasn’t quite sure if anyone else was following or if she had even uttered her goodbyes. As she watched herself from afar she gathered that she might have been looking for a cab.

* * *

_“Please there was nothing between us! You can’t leave me here.”_

_Her father stood unflinching, jaws unnaturally locked, looking away from his groveling daughter. “We have to do this Sasha.”_

_“I’m sorry it has come to this. This is for your own sake.”_

* * *

_32 missed calls_.

She had been sent to her therapist’s voicemail thirty-two times and it had seemed like the woman was busy with another client. But Sasha knew that she was at the brink of psychosis with the little fragment of rationality that she could dig from inside her head.

It took a while to type out what was surprisingly a memorized number from her fingers that violently twitched but she was able to eventually press call.

The other line answered.

“Sash?” 

“Becky…” She breathed. “I remember everything.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In a fit on insanity, we're getting closer...  
> *sigh* Hope you guys liked it. Wasn't quite sure if this chapter took me out, or took out of me some demons. Either way... I certainly felt both exhausted and relieved.


	9. Vox Dei, Vox Populi

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **TRIGGER WARNING** : Homophobia, and scenes within conversion therapy. If these are topics that bother you, I'd advise you to not proceed.

* * *

**Chapter 9: Vox Dei, Vox Populi**

_“Some of you will have fine monuments by which the living may remember the evil done to you. Some of you will have only crude wooden crosses or painted rocks, while yet others of you must remain hidden in the shadows of history.”_

* * *

Unearthed before her eyes was a long, wide road of scattered leaves and empty benches and unswept gravel. Vibrant trees lined up by each side of the road, their branches extended to distantly hold each other, like a loveless marriage between root and skies. In the dance between scattered sunlight and shapely shadows. She was able to look back, the sunlight rising from the open glade. Her own reflection appeared and reappeared by the corner of her eyes, shadowed by the endless trees that grew darker and darker as the car sped past road signs and empty benches.

“Are you sure about this?” Sasha’s mother said, in a lowly whisper that was a stranger to everyone - especially that it had come from her mother’s throat. Olivia was unrecognizable from where Sasha was sitting, tall trees shadowing her face like a funeral veil. “Maybe we could just… handle it ourselves?”

“I'm entirely certain. My decision is done Olivia.” Her father sterned with gritted teeth, veins surfacing from his knuckles as he choked speed out of the steering wheel. “Do not give me that pathetic look, you _know_ this is for her own good.”

Her mother sighed. “We shouldn’t have let her run around with that _Rebecca_.”

The Christian tongue cut like a sword, and at that point Sasha was too hazy to realize how right Becky had been to say that. She just wanted to drift off, as the ride to Boston might take hours and she would see Becky’s reflection every time the sun would cast its glare against their transparent windows. She would rather not see Becky’s reflection, hear Becky’s cries. 

They were going to find a way. Through letters maybe. _God_ , she hoped that Becky would find a way to write.

Sasha felt her mother stare back at her, in the slight line of sight that she had while forcing her eyes to flutter close and enter the state of slumber. She should have seen it then, because Olivia looked like she was deeply concerned.

 _Then_ she would have wondered if little girls inherit their mothers’ silence. 

Because they weren’t heading to Boston, were they? Maybe a little part of Sasha knew that. But she would ask anyway, as a sliver of hope that her father was not the type to try to fix things that weren’t broken.

* * *

The car stopped at a summer camp that was fronted by a restaurant to welcome families. She was hoping that they served mango shake. A bit of a few hours on the road with just water had dehydrated her taste buds. 

A slightly overweight man approached the three of them, with a hawaiian shirt and a whistle to complete his lousy summer look. Sasha would have thought that he was the manager if she didn’t look up and notice the sign of a cross on top of open palms. 

“Good afternoon! Hello, welcome Mr. and Mrs. Banks. How was your trip?”

Her father had unloaded the car and suddenly, Sasha could feel like she was drowning. It was the same feeling that had haunted her at night, pretending to be conscience when it was manufactured guilt.

“Dad…?”

“I’m sorry sweetheart. But this is for your own good.”

People over the years have said that the path that leads to least resistance led to crooked rivers and crooked men - to which her father had claimed to be anything but. So she wanted to ask about the irony in his eyes when she flailed and he looked at her, begging for her to stop resisting.

* * *

The books were the first to go on the first day, when it all went to hell, particularly blank journals where thoughts were expressed and hidden away. That was the first rule of the camp. All thoughts were to be expressed in _the room_. Where the only warmth was a flickering candle- fighting the artificial glow of the fluorescent light. It was so bright that there was no comfortable corner to hide her flaws and lick her wounds. There was so much light in the room that her eyes had to darken. They had said, everyone is bare before the eyes of God. Sin has no corner to hide in, as the rooms lacked traditional edges.

On the second day, they threw every graphic tee that Sasha owned. Eventually, she could wear them, they said. She just needed her femininity back from the clutches of dark vulnerabilities that riddled her childhood. 

Sasha could still hear the lecturer. 

_No one is born with same-sex attraction. They are byproducts of a disturbed past._

And then… her paintings were the third to go.

* * *

When Adam and Eve fell from the gates of Eden, it was Eve who was to blame. She stared at the crimson pigment of the apple for all of eternity until she had decided that there was a life beyond naivety and the enclosing vines of Eden, a life beyond Adam, and happiness beyond God. Because it’s always the woman who gives birth to the fall of mankind.

Sasha’s gaze was lost into the canvas as her hands masterfully dipped a fine brush to create the darker shadows of the painting’s hair that was colored like hellfire. She wondered if Eve wouldn’t have plucked the apple if it hadn’t been so red. If it hadn’t brimmed with promises of a freer life. If everything that the serpent had said were blatant _lies_ because she knew, in deep contemplation, that they weren’t.

When Adam and Eve were cast towards the barren soil of earth, they had brought with them something that everybody called _original sin_ ; as if shame was innate to every human and animal who would be born from that point on. 

_Don’t be stupid_ , she could hear Becky’s words burning at the back of her head. _Shame isn’t inherited, it is made._ Her words were so, _damned_ , dangerous. Her voice was so, beautifully haunting - that its ghost lingered even in their distance.

“What are you painting?” The voice of a moderately aged and modest lady startled Sasha. She was polite in asking, _too_ polite in fact that the air-cool hum that came out of her mouth could have been laced with spite. But it was a valid question. As Sasha took a step back, she noticed that her hand had been moving to carve out the likeness of Becky’s chiseled jaw, as she got lost in the tendrils of _that woman’s_ hellfire hair.

“W-what am I painting?” Sasha stammered. She’d be dead if they knew. “Holy Mary of course.”

The middle-aged woman shook her head, a sheen of ice glazing her tone as she bowed to Sasha’s tender height, patronizingly levelling her head. “We talked about this. And Holy Mary doesn’t have red hair. She was a holy woman from Nazareth, not an immigrant from Dublin.”

“Sasha.”

“Yeah?”

“We talked about this already.” The facilitator was calm but Sasha knew that every word that came out of her tongue was biting, weighing like punishments being collected into debts that she would later repay. “Come see Mr. Bryan at his office.”

* * *

Hot summer air rendered clear windows and a sunny glare from Mr. Bryan’s office. He was the founder of the not-forsaken-camp, with an uncannily smooth and almost reptilian face and an eerily wide smile If there was an attempt in his being to make himself comfortable, it was in his manufactured and deliberately deep voice. 

“Sasha Banks,” He leaned back comfortably from his wheeled office chair, it created a croaking sound that quickly mixed into the cacophony of nature which came from trees and a stirring lake - just outside of the cabins. “Do you want to tell us what you were painting?”

His brow-raised mannerism belittled Sasha as she absorbed all of the condescension into the small of her voice. The barely completed canvas sat beside the wooden chair that she sat in as both of them eyed vibrant half of the canvas. She mumbled, “It wasn’t really important.”

Mr. Bryan shook his head, attempting to hide the obvious click of his tongue - which Sasha of course had taken note of. Bending over from his principal chair, he reached for the vault below his desk to pull out a clean folder. He opened it from its center as he fished out a cut-out picture of Becky.

Sasha froze from where she sat.

She had almost forgotten how much she loved Becky’s features, seeing its physical representation through a picture instead of dreams and paintings. In a much different setting where thoughts were equally encouraged yet rewarded instead of punished, they would have said that the precise words in her mind was the concept of ‘life imitates art’, because _God_ , she looked like sunset and Sasha could stare at the picture for hours until it melts into the horizon.

“Sasha…” Mr. Bryan trailed off, sounding as if he was in the cusp of a long question. “Do you want to get better?”

 _I didn’t know that I was sick._ The voice was in her head, but it was gutturally low in texture. So Sasha thought that maybe… Becky somewhat lives in there too. “Sorry?”

“You see… what you _have_ , it’s a complication. A sin, much like any other. Just like alcoholism, or anger issues. It’s not beyond saving.” He explained. “I personally struggled with same-sex attractions before-”

“You were gay?” That was new. Becky would totally laugh at Mr. Bryan, she would say something along the lines of ‘don’t get high on your own supply’. 

“You see Sasha, we don’t use the term _gay_. Because that means that you’re accepting the inherent nature of the act.” He contemplated, drowning in the current of his own experience. “This… struggle, it’s a choice. Because love is a choice. No one becomes a basketball player overnight, you choose to become one gradually. And the thing about that is that choices carry _consequences_.”

Sasha could roll her eyes, it was the same tired metaphor that hive-minded churches often used. They were never good at parallels. 

“Do you understand what I’m saying?” He looked at her intently, as if everything else had blurred into the background and even in the stillness of his tone Sasha felt like she was being scolded into obedience. “Choices carry consequences.”

* * *

They must have known that she hated standing in front, speaking in public, exposing herself - and within the scrutinizing and prying eyes of the other kids too. Punishments indeed fit the crime as she stood there like an open wound, to the beautiful fairytale that quickly soured into admonition as judgement crossed the face of several facilitators whispering ‘devil’ for every time she would mention ‘red’. 

Eventually, there was nothing left - as memories leave beautifully but return as shame. 

_Forgive me Becky, I’m not embarrassed by you. People scare me and I’m starting to think that stories of you do too._

If the floor would open up and swallow her, that would have been preferable. Now everybody knew what they were. There was nothing left. She wanted to keep some of them, but they kept on asking questions - digging at the secret corners of her soul just to draw out Becky.

There was nothing left.

People said that when art and beauty escape the haven of one’s mind, people - beastly in their nature - will just devour it; digesting it into ugly acid until it turns into shit. 

Ever since that day, Sasha has not touched paint.

Because on the second week of camp, they took Becky.

* * *

Sasha was curled up in a fetal position, staring at the walls, or the rot that grew from beneath them. As Becky observed and kneeled beside her, tears empathically swelled from her own eyes. 

“I had dreams. A lot of dreams. I thought they were real and you had somehow found where I was and saved me.” Sasha was rocking herself back and forth and back again, now staring at her carpet. “I wanted to write to you, but all I could do was paint you… even in pictures and in my head they took you away.”

When Sasha had called her, Becky so badly wanted to leave it to voicemail. 

“I will never forgive them.”

Their story was that of the world taking, always taking what was supposed to be theirs. And Becky was not going to take from that too. 

“Sasha.” Becky murmured, because all at once, expensive carpet felt like the tiles of the women’s restroom and Sasha was sixteen again. “I know it hurts but- they’re not going to take us away anymore.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So uh... not a lot of words in this chapter but hopefully this was a clear wrap-up of the confusing aspects of the past chapters


	10. Epilogue

* * *

**Epilogue**

_“ What they don’t understand about birthdays and what they never tell you is that when you’re eleven, you’re also ten, and nine, and eight, and seven, and six, and five, and four, and three, and two, and one. And when you wake up on your eleventh birthday you expect to feel eleven, but you don’t. You open your eyes and everything’s just like yesterday, only it’s today.”_

* * *

_Four Weeks Later_

* * *

Sasha’s shoes did not have the same commanding click as it kissed the floor of her psychiatrist’s office, instead, rubber soles rubbed peacefully against clean flooring as she demurely approached the distantly familiar office that she had found herself confidently above a month and a couple of weeks ago. 

Nothing had changed, the air conditioner still buzzed as if it needed fixing and on an off-hour, frost would creep from the corners of the window. The couch was still leathery cold, and the faint smell of old files and books did much to add a homely feeling to the environment. But of course, she had noticed these, it just never really fully sank.

As Sasha took in the quaintness of the room, she was abruptly interrupted by the therapist clearing her throat.

“It’s nice seeing you again, Sasha.” The therapist smiled at her, and although it had the same crook, she had looked different. Her face was clearer but maybe it was because of the beautifully-lit outdoors. “Why don’t you come take a seat?”

* * *

Sasha sat there, once again, brazen like an open wound, retelling a decade worth of forgottens. But she was older and better, she knew that people have to trust to get better. And still, this didn’t stop the involuntary twitch of her knuckles as she almost instinctively searched the therapist’s face for condescension, the slightest bit of judgment in the little nods that compelled her to keep telling her story.

And there was none. Even though Sasha would be able to justify it in the slight twitch of the therapist’s brows. But she swallowed the thought, lest she tried.

“So, have you been experiencing any… physical or emotional effects from these resurfaced events?” The therapist carefully asked. Sasha caught the quick-second concern that pierced through the woman’s otherwise cool demeanor. It showed in the slight parting of her lips.

“Hallucinations, I guess?” Sasha sighed, eyeing the roof to wrack her mind for more answers. “Sometimes, I can still hear the events or- I don’t know? Imagine some things and maybe dream.”

“How well have you coped with it so far? You seem to be doing pretty well.”

“Well,” Sasha looked down, the lace of her shoes becoming more and more interesting as she fumbled with the hem of her shirt. “I… do have a friend who’s helping me through it.”

The therapists’ eyebrows cocked, perhaps Sasha had accidentally laced her tone with undue gloom. “How is that working for you?”

“Great... actually.” Sasha pursed her lips, putting a halt to the words that have risen from the wrench in her gut. “Actually... I kind of wanted to discuss something that bothered me ever since the memories had fully come back.”

“Of course.”

* * *

“Well it is certainly a step-by-step process.” The therapist was concluding, gathering the mess of files in front of her back into the folder. “You may think that it could be your fault but you have to remember that you’re just… a person and that some of these things just _happen_. I definitely commend you for bringing it up, but don’t be too hard on yourself.”

“I know.” Sasha squared her shoulders, poising her legs to stand up and prepare to leave. She hadn’t even noticed that time hopped past them. “It’s just difficult not to rationalize it in that way. I don’t think I would be able to survive without framing things into perspective.”

“Well now that I know that you used to paint, that’d make a lot of sense.” The therapist chuckled. “But you can _try to_ accept those things that you won’t be able to make sense of and change. In the end, no one really leaves the world with all their questions having been answered.”

“Maybe.” Sasha sighed, a small smile tugging at the corner of her lips, in recognition of the steep road towards being whole again. After all, progress was never - ever linear or mathematical. And maybe, she preferred it that way. “Thank you… Dr. Melina.”

“No problem Sasha.” The therapist shot her a proud smile as Sasha slowly exited the office towards the other side of the floor where she was greeted with the familiarity of a cocky grin masking the sun that radiates from beneath its owner’s ribcage. 

“You ready?” Becky rasped, it was so early in the morning and blood had barely been pumping life into her throat.

“Yeah. I’m ready.”

* * *

The engine of Becky’s motorcycle sounded like a supernova of memories from back when they had nothing but were everything all at once. With each passing day it became less difficult for her to not live in the bones of who she used to be, to be trapped in the bliss of a nostalgic prison; to imagine that when she looks at Becky and the mirror, their faces were smoother and less worried. When they weren’t careful. When they were lovers instead of friends.

Sasha thought that maybe she liked Becky, as her arms wrapped around Becky’s waist and her head rested on top of her muscled back. It had felt one of those lazy, early, school mornings where she often wakes up thirty minutes before the alarm - to savor life before it starts once again. Sasha had always held on to those minutes, like she held on to Becky now; knowing full well that it was finite, and nonetheless, wanting to pause and stretch out the moment for an eternity. 

On the day that she had wished that traffic would have done its job, the slight space in the road was clear for a speeding bike. 

“Sasha… Sasha? We’re here.” Sasha heard Becky’s voice vibrate from her back and towards Sasha’s flattened cheeks as the motorcycle drew to a smooth halt just in front of the curb of an experimental hybrid between a museum and a coffee shop. 

_Oh_. Sasha slowly sat straight, blinking away the fragments of the sundered illusion. Suddenly, it was 6:30AM and it was time to get ready for school. Suddenly, the sun was fully out. “Yeah… let’s go.”

“I can’t believe you did it,” Bayley exclaimed, unable to hide the mirth that was slowly rising from the corner of her mouth like dawn. But who was Sasha kidding? That was more than mirth, in the few of instances where relief was better than happiness; where relief was a loaded sigh packed with closure and justice. “You… got Rollins fired and quit the company?”

Of course Bayley was overjoyed, she should be and she deserved to be. She did not know about the transactions that were set on fire when Seth did. He was a talented executive. But Sasha thought that, maybe during that day she felt a little bit of brashness and bravery in her bones - to believe that a wrong doesn’t right another wrong. There would always be a way to save the world’s capital. Sasha sighed, content for now in the feeling of accomplishment she had - to be able to correct a mistake. It was reactive, but it was the best they could have. “I guess, yeah.”

“Dude,” Bayley sat back and closed her mouth and yet the joy never left her eyes. “ _Thank you._ ” 

“It was the right thing to do.” Sasha looked at Becky, who couldn’t have looked any more prouder as their hands hid beneath the table, close enough to feel the heat of the inch of distance between them. And yet their skin did not touch.

Bayley shook her head. She seemed to momentarily ponder the implications of the new chink in Wall Street’s armor. “So… Becky, right? I’m a little sad that we won’t be able to get to know each other more. Sasha’s told me all about you on Facebook.”

And with the brow raised at Sasha, Becky’s eyes glistened like a prying flame. “Oh?”

“What brought you to New York anyway?”

“Well,” Becky smiled sadly, her shoulders falling and her eyes alight towards the distant stare as she looked over the lifeless carvings that decorated the shop. “To hang with some of my cooler clients, but mostly because of some privately funded fellowship that was supposed to help alcoholics recover through art therapy. Kind of like as a healthier alternative to A.A.?”

Bayley sipped her coffee, still engaged with the narrative whereas Sasha had already drifted out of the conversation - lost in the torrent of her own mind. Because she _knew_ what was coming. They’ve talked about it for a hundred times already, and Sasha had apologized for a million more. But she didn’t feel any less guilty.

“So you’re helping out with the program?” Bayley added. “That’s very noble of you. What happened?”

Becky shrugged, shooting Sasha a tight-lipped smile, hoping that the visual representation of ‘it’s fine’ would suffice the gap left by the both of their hands that went cold with neglect. “Well, it got defunded, and eventually closed down. The Flair industries were cutting costs and charities were the first to go.”

 _It’s okay it’s not your fault._ Becky could have told her this a million times and she still wouldn’t believe it.

* * *

“I still feel like it’s my fault.” Sasha murmured, breaking the thick layer of quiet that hovered between them as soon as they had arrived at Becky's temporary condominium. The day was already on the cusp of the evening, and once again, Sasha found herself restless against time. 

Without looking at her, Becky headed over to her kitchen - squeezing past the small spaces that the apartment had allowed her to freely move towards as luggage pressed hard against her legs. “It’s not your fault.”

“I just-” Sasha shook her head, drowning out the sight of luggage and the song of departure from her line of vision. “I can’t seem to fix one thing that’s happened because of me without screwing over the other.” 

“You’re not screwing over anything.” Becky’s voice echoed from behind the fridge as she pulled out a can of corn and potatoes from the vegetable section. “I promise.”

“I feel like you’re leaving because of me.”

Becky’s sigh was loaded, as she set the ingredients down to walk towards Sasha. The couch dipped with a warmth that Sasha could only wish that she could feel, as Becky maintained a slight bit of distance between them; enough to make herself feel available, but not within Sasha’s touch. There were eleven years between then and now, but Becky’s embrace from when they were sixteen lingered. It warmed her back like a spiteful ghost. 

She didn’t look like she was prepared for it, as her tongue kept running over her lips as if to oil the words that refused to get out. But in one deep breath, Becky eventually was able to say it. “I was always going to leave Sash.” 

Sasha faced her, because she promised herself that no matter what the situation was - whether it was hell or high water; she would no longer run. But _fuck_ , hearing those words soured in her heart as an acidic bitterness settled at the pit of her stomach. Maybe her eyes were about to water, but all she could do at that moment was to - take in the hours that they have left.

 _Do you really have to go?_ Sasha was unable to ask.

Becky was leaving for her home the next morning. 

“New York, Sash…” Becky took a deep breath, inhaling with her the luminous and lonely skyline of the Big Apple from where they sat - city lights twinkling a little bit dimmer as their time approached its twilight. “It’s not me. It’s _so fast_ , everything’s _so expensive_ , and people don’t feel like they’re living - you know? It’s- it’s just not my speed. I don’t think it’s ever been.”

Sasha let out a self-reflective sigh because in Becky’s words she had found clarity about who she’s been - a byproduct of the city, living in a mutual cycle of feeding into each other’s death until neither one of them were anything but city ash. But she wanted to change that, and she _was changing_ that. She breathed in and breathed out, trying to make sense of the clutter that sat in her chest like a whirlpool of _I hate you_ and _please stay_. She was trying to change, unable to fully blame circumstances for her being so goddamn detached.

There was a full minute of silence before Sasha noticed that Becky was also looking deep into her, boring a lifetime of understanding within the gray corners of her soul. Their face had gotten so close and Sasha wasn’t even sure who was the person who leaned into the kiss first. 

Becky burned hot against her tongue, and Sasha had been so sure before that if they had kissed - it would bring back the warmth of her childhood but all there was at that moment was the burn of angry nostalgia. Becky felt so _different_ , she felt mature to an extent as Sasha’s body begged for air when she inhaled the scent of citrus and nutmeg from her perfume. Their lips were so full and aged and experienced. Because eleven years ago, Becky wouldn’t have been able to capture Sasha’s soul in just a matter of seconds as the hotness of her tongue swept against Sasha’s bottom lip.

Time could stop, time should stop.

But time had never stopped, not even for second farewells.

Becky pulled away from Sasha, making sure to do it so slowly that every part of her mouth had received a proper goodbye before Becky took an inch back to face her.

“Can’t you just stay with me? Let’s be happy, just like this.” Sasha was sure that she was on the precipice of uncontrollable heaving when she took a deep breath and bared herself in front of Becky.

A deep frown formed from the corner of Becky’s lips, but they were too little of a part of her face to express the level of sadness that had started to cloud the sun in her heart. So her eyes did its job as it swelled up with transparent tears. “I want to. _God_ , I want to. But Sasha… I’m not sure if it’s the sixteen-year-old in us that wants to - and I… you, we both need to be sure.”

Sasha had started to release the ugly tears into an unhappy chuckle. She _knew_ that this was the end. But even at the curtain call, Becky made so much sense and she hated just how things should have been done just because they made sense. 

“You need to rediscover who you are and heal. To get a life outside of your past.” Becky nodded to herself, secondarily talking to Sasha as she attempted to convince herself more than the girl that had dyed her hair blue. “I can’t get in the way of that- and… as much as that, I need some time okay? Just to process everything.”

Tears flowed from Sasha’s eyes even faster and Becky cupped her cheeks to wipe them away with her thumb, undoing all of her own efforts as painful words continued to spill from her mouth. “We are so different now and we can’t rely on the past to like each other, okay?”

“I know…” 

“But… you know that I’m always a phone call away, right? Someday… someday we can try again.”

“I know...”

* * *

_The doctors had called her to the emergency room, and she obliged. Her dad had to be thankful that managing clients did not tie her down to the four corners of her office. Whatever the news was, she thought that she might have been ready for it._

_When her heels carefully walked towards her dad, she saw the heart monitor slowly fade into hills rather than the normal mountainous pulse rate. It had no longer looked like the European Alps, but a pathetic lifeline of someone who was about to expire. Sasha drew a deep breath, feeling a hollowness settle within her chest, a distant nostalgia coloring her darkened eyes._

_“I’m sorry.” Her father croaked, and she was not sure what he was talking about. “Sasha… I am so, very, deeply, infinitely, sorry.”_

_Those were her father’s last words._

* * *

"Becky?"

"Yeah?"

"When you get back… to your- whatever's next for you… will you write to me?"

“We will talk every day."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... it's the end of the line guys. If you made it this far, I can't thank you enough for reading it. Stay sane, stay safe, I hope you enjoyed this short ride. The quote mentioned above is from Eleven by Sandra Cisneros

**Author's Note:**

> All quotes that are uncited belong to The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro. Thank you for reading, and if you enjoyed it, don't be shy to hit kudos or leave your thoughts.


End file.
